In truth I was the sidekick during our marriage, which endured until death but not nearly long enough.
I was a good foot shorter than my husband Jim. I finally realized, only recently, that he always fudged his height downward as I finessed mine incrementally upward, so I could maintain the illusion I wasn’t quite so minute.
But he was the towering superhero. If he was taking magnificent photographs, I was happy to hold the lens cap. Literally.
More to the point than the physical disparity, I tended to simply tag along on adventures Jim orchestrated, right down to the enormous and wildly complicated enterprise of bringing him home to die.
So I’m no longer, technically, a sidekick.
Or does one remain, in tandem places, a companion forever to the ghosts by one’s side? Did Death Cab for Cutie have the answer?
“Love of mine, some day you will die
But I’ll be close behind
I’ll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark . . . .”
Love in the Spaces 