SHAKING OFF MISCONCEPTIONS

Watching him walk ahead of me to the car after our early-morning swim two years ago, it struck me that my beloved mountain-hiking househusband, Chris, was developing a slight stoop and a shuffle. ‘Straighten up, Sweetheart; lift those feet!’ Ichided. ‘You’re not a grandpa yet.’

‘It’s my sandals,’ he shot back with a grin, squaring his shoulders, and I left it.

In the weeks that followed I noticed he was doing fewer laps in the pool. ‘Just taking it easy,’ he said. ‘What’s the rush?’ And because he’s walked quite slowly for years, I left it.

When he began stopping by my home-office desk to ask for back rubs, he told me that after 60 your back gets stiff sometimes. Besides, he’s always been a sucker for a massage. So I left it still.

Then, in September 2019, the unthinkable happened: we lost our older son to depression at 25. Bowed by the sheer weight of grief, I, too, found myself shuffling through life, blind to those around me, even the man