There was one best way, it seemed, one reliable avenue to help you feel less alone in your last hours and minutes: the sharing of unbelievably beautiful music accompanied by the comfort of touch.

You hadn’t spoken in years. Even though I always chattered as if you understood, you hadn’t really convinced me of that, and I never risked springing a pop quiz: “Squeeze my hand if you understand.” I just went with tone of voice and assumed you’d get some of it. A few years into your tenure in Memory Care – just after we’d gone to see the delightful movie Cinderella, starring Lily James, the heavy security door opened slowly and I announced, “We’re back!” I gently handed you off to the caregiver so he could walk you down to dinner. “I love you,” I said, in a deliberately upbeat tone, kissing you quickly on the lips and giving your arm a squeeze. With a stammer both heroic and poignant, you spoke your very last words to me: “I, I love you too.”

Then you went completely silent for the rest of your life – five more years of walking resolutely up and down the long hallway, studying each carpentered detail on the railing, each little smudge on the wall. You were always the artist, visually in sync with geometric patterns and accidental art. In fact, you unintentionally became a professional when your brightly-colored abstracts from the Tuesday afternoon painting class went to the national Alzheimer fund raiser, and sold! On my twice-weekly visits, I had a mission: to get you out of the building and into the sun; find beautiful places where children were playing, and have quiet little picnics. Or go see a kinder, gentler movie at the mall and eat ice cream. (What a pair we made!)

You’d told me bravely right after the diagnosis, “It is what it is,” and you carried that Buddhist banner all the way to the end. You’d help the staff fold laundry, escort wheel-chaired compatriots, and politely peruse my books of exceptional National Geographic photographs as I narrated. You especially loved it when your kids and grandkids came to see you!

One afternoon in your first few months in Memory Care you lifted a chair on top of a picnic table in the back patio, finessed the iron spires on the fence top and jumped eight feet onto the springy grass to momentary freedom! I still applaud that Wonder Woman daring-deed, years later. Another adventure was your silent but steamy cat fight with another woman about as youngish as you – for the attentions of Don, a smiley-faced old guy under a cowboy hat. That sweetly comical feud was resolved in fairly short order when Don disappeared. You and Sharon became buddies for a year or so, but then she too died in her sleep. Each of these dear but temporary friends had valiantly wrestled what I call nature’s dirtiest trick: the slow decline of once-vibrant humans, like juicy, fragrant peaches collapsing into something almost unrecognizable.

At least you missed the grisliest of the decade’s news. I remember telling you gleefully that we were going to have the first woman President! Not long after that you must have heard me grumble, “Trump,” but it wasn’t your responsibility to worry. Climate change only had relevance in your daily routine because some summer days were too hot for sitting out on the patio. (And on those days, the damn air conditioning usually over-compensated. One resident put on a parka in July, warning me to be careful).

Your final descent was all too familiar; I knew it from my father’s last days and later, my mother’s: the stumble, then the collapse. The oxygen tubes and continuous, mechanical drumming of the machine’s bellows. Mucous pooling in the throat, and the lungs gamely soldiering on with equipment really designed for half a century at most. Then Hospice-prescribed morphine administered every two hours. Your time had come; maybe seven days left, so we had to get busy. I felt driven to help you have a peaceful departure, you sure as hell deserved it. I couldn’t decide if I should tell you that you were dying, but then you told me by putting your wrist in front of your mouth when I offered a spoonful of yogurt. You’d somehow booked your ticket, and I wanted, more than ever, to honor that. And I wanted to be a fear-slayer, for both you and for me.

Though we’d once been partners and lovers, I had very gratefully found Anne by your third year in the home. She’s an exquisite woman who will share the rest of the ride with me (I hope!) But I Ioved you, too, in a different way now, and I had to make sure you felt that love. I focused on what was still available to us: music. Like Mr. Green Jeans on Captain Kangaroo, I’d pop in as the music guy, equipped with iPad, Bluetooth speaker and a whole ensemble of musicians-in-a-phone. Van the Man Morrison opened the concert that first day, delivering his gutsy, primal anthem, Into the Mystic. Then Sting, Mr. Cool Guy, offered Fields of Gold as a blessing. We held hands, alternating squeezes and caresses, your eyes sparkling from the morphine; the extra oxygen; the fasting; and our nineteen-year relationship. Debussy wafted Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and Chopin followed with Nocturne in E Minor, one of the most delicately sublime pieces of music ever written. I remember commenting, “Wasn’t that beautiful?” and then being overcome by a shudder of helpless, humble tears. In this peak moment we were sampling the beautiful art that life offers, choosing to ignore the certainty your bed would soon be empty. We were conspirators; the only reality that mattered was right now. Each moment, each song, began to feel like a precious slice of eternity. (When experiences are so heightened, do they actually slow down for us?)

From 1962 came Vince Guaraldi’s Cast Your Fate to the Wind, then Louis Armstrong’s gravel-voiced What a Wonderful World needed a second go-round, it was so sweet. Neil Young’s lovely, hypnotic Harvest Moon was pure delight, too, also worth two listens.

Gerry Mulligan’s bouncy saxophone on Body and Soul took us for an imaginary joyride in a Mustang convertible, maybe a little like the Miata you’d once sported. I took a chance with Norah Jones’ song, Don’t Know Why, because it was our song. We’d discovered Norah on the racks at a music shop before she became famous, and there were deep, passionate grooves worn into that song. I’d hoped it would bring fond, soulful memories, and it did. Your eyes closed dreamily as the song began, and truthfully, we both were swept away by this poignant, nostalgic memory. (Our little secret, accessible to no one else, ever).

But your favorite song of all seemed to be the swaying, unpretentious Margaret’s Waltz, flowing out of Bryan Sutton’s acoustic guitar like a hand-held bouquet of wildflowers. If anyone else had been in the room, they might have thought we were getting ready to arm wrestle, but no, just slow-dancing the waltz with arms and hands rather than legs and feet.

The next day, we revisited some of those same songs and chose a few new ones, too. The caregivers had pulled socks over your hands because you kept going back to your lips, cracked and dry from so much mouth-breathing and too little water. I pulled the sock off your right hand and slipped my own hand under yours. We continued to make use of the essential resources we had, including this precious, elevated sense of wonder, and awe. Our boat was so small and the ocean, so vast and dazzling.

A few days later, December 15, your fever had come back. You looked god-awful when I walked in. With a cool washcloth on your forehead, you gazed unblinkingly at something I couldn’t see, your mouth gaping open and your breathing desperate. I’m not sure you even knew I was there, but when I put on Margaret’s Waltz – loud enough to drown out the oxygen generator – your breathing suddenly became more relaxed. Maybe the rich bass notes had settled into your soul; and come to think of it, maybe we’d been rehearsing for this very moment. Your leg shifted one last time (“kicking the bucket,” I suppose) and your breathing was fading away, I watched it go. As the waltz ended, and without further ado, you hitched a ride on the last song, the playful Fleetwood Mac tune, “Never Going Back Again.”

After whispering a little prayer I stumbled in shock into the hallway and told a caretaker that you’d just passed. It had been a great honor to be with you at just that time; no less eventful than witnessing my son’s and daughter’s births many years before. Namaste, you marvelously mischievous lady! I learned so much from you!