ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife

Book One, Part Two, Chapter 123: Bark

The word I use to describe the self I was with Ernie?

Bark.

My voice was a bark. I was so damned sure of myself. Opinionated. Judgemental. Angry. Joshua often said: “Your voice goes right through me.” Ernie said, near his end, after something I said to him: “My ears hurt.”

And bark, also meaning this: layers of hard, protective wood covering a soft core. I didn’t even feel my heart; that’s how removed from me it was. I didn’t know I was hurting or that I was hurting others or that others were hurting. Didn’t feel it. Only now has my voice and heart softened. Only now do I speak of compassion, longing, trust, kindness.

In my bark of a heart, I thought I’d be okay without Ernie. I thought I’d be freer to be me.

What a joke I played on myself. Freer to be me? Who am I without Ernie? Just a little girl who doesn’t want to grow up.

Ernie often said he spoiled me. I didn’t believe him, but now I know what he meant. He let me be a little girl. I never wore a watch or carried a wallet. This wasn’t healthy for him or for me. Too much he did; too little I did.

He needed a woman, not a little girl, by his side. I needed a husband, not a daddy, by my side. We both needed what we weren’t giving to each other.

Grateful that we were together for forty years?

Not really. I’d rather have a year of living with Ernie the way I think we could be now than forty years of living together the way we were.