Today is Cam’s birthday—a time to reflect on her passing

 By Steve Otto

It is hard to imagine anything more negative than losing a spouse to the grim reaper. I married Cam more than 37 years ago. It was a very successful marriage. We had a few problems and we went through some rough times. But we stayed together and our relationship endured.

Of all the things to happen in my life, Cam was probably one of the best, if not THE best thing, in my life. My success as a writer has been marginal—same way with my career (if I can call it that). So at least I was married to a good wife. She was smart and successful—way more successful that I have been.

I remember a friend of mine complaining that he didn’t get the career he wanted, the money he wanted, the fame or even the wife he really wanted. At least I was never disappointed in the wife I ended up with. That part of my life has not sucked. I felt bad that my friend felt he didn’t get the wife he wanted. I’m not sure why he felt a need to settle for a wife he didn’t want. But that was his problem and not mine.

Today would have been her 72^nd birthday. We usually didn’t do much for her birthday, in the last few years of our lives together. I always got her some kind of present. We used to have a little party or celebration of some kind, but in the last few years I bought her a gift and she was too sick to go out anywhere.

It really sucks when I realized that sitting in our living room is all we would ever expect to do together for the rest of our lives. No more trips to other countries or even states or cities or to see Ethan at his home. All the good times where behind us and we both knew it. We have had a good life together. We visited our friend Mark Davis in Spain one year. We went to places he knew about all over his home-town of Madrid. With Mark we also went to some nude beaches, saw some other towns and land marks such as a 2,000 year old Mosque. The three of us went all over Spain. Cam and I went together to see the Bask lands by ourselves. All three of us spent a day in Algiers, Morocco. That was the most repressive country I think we ever visited.

We went to Canada for a day during our honey-moon. We spent most of our honey-moon at Mackinac Island in Lake Huron. Except for our trip to Spain, she and I had both been to Europe, although not together.

When Cam’s parents died, she lost most of her enthusiasm for Christmas and other holidays. She got along well with most of her family members and it was her idea to be buried near her parents in a Lawrence cemetery. I really don’t care where we get buried, although that is a nice cemetery and much better than Resthaven. She really hated Resthaven.

Around my house I have kept some mementos to remind me of Cam. I just recently framed and hung a Hillary Clinton poster that Cam had saved. She supported Hillary, not only because we both hated Trump and wanted him to lose, but Hillary reminded Cam of the kinds of feminist politicians she grew up on. We had slightly different political views, but we both understood each other and where we came from. Cam understood my admiration for Chiang Ching (江青), representing both feminism, which Cam really liked, and my support for Marxism. So I hung the poster to remind me of Cam. I didn’t like Hillary as much as she did, but the poster reminds me of her.

When my own birthday comes I probably won’t do much more than I am doing today. Maybe next year will look better than this one. I really don’t know what to expect.

This ends a major chapter in my life. 37 years is as long time and was a large part of both our lives. Some of our friends think that retirement from Cam’s job is what brought her down. That happens to a lot of people. Tim Pouncey’s dad died a year after he retired. I have heard of a lot of other people who have died a year or so after they retired. At least Cam lived more than a year. So Cam may be one more victim of retirement. She died at 71 years of age. She has outlived a few of our friends, but it would have been nice to have her for a few more years.

Here we are at a Halloween Party.