“Twogether” Forever

Douglas Winslow Cooper

In love for nearly half a century, married more than a quarter-century, we lay next to each other in her bed that night, beside her life-support equipment.

My beloved wife Tina Su Cooper asked me, “Will we be together through eternity?”

“Yes. If heaven is in store for us, we will be there together. Otherwise, we will lie side by side. Our graves will share a headstone that says, at the bottom, ‘together forever.’ If I go first, don’t hurry to join me. If you go first, I won’t hurry, either. There will be an eternity through which to remain united.”

“Good.”

“Dearest Ting, thank you for loving me and for being someone worthy of my devotion.”

“Thank you, too.”

“Our love is something like a work of art, and we are collaborators in its creation. It is not as tangible as a picture or a sculpture or even a book. It is more like beautiful music, and in that way it can endure forever.”

“I like that: beautiful music, a duet.”

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., a retired environmental physicist, lives in southern New York State with his beloved wife, Tina Su Cooper, a former editor at the Encyclopedia Britannica and mother of two. Tina was first diagnosed with MS in 1981 at the age of 37, and she has been quadriplegic and ventilator-dependent at home for almost eight years. Tina is the central figure in Dr. Cooper’s book, Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage, and Devotion, available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or their website, tingandi.com.