When my husband died, because he was so famous & known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me it still sometimes happens & ask me if Carl changed at the end & converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage & never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I dont ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief & precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive & we were together was miraculous not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance
That pure chance could be so generous & so kind
That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space & the immensity of time
That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me & its much more meaningful
The way he treated me & the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other & our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I dont think Ill ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.
