Encore: A Lifetime of Good Loving

Modern Love

The New York Times

Love, New York Times, Nytimes, Essay, Loss, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Redemption, Nyt

4.3 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we’re revisiting the story of Bette Ann Moskowitz, who lost her husband of 56 years on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic. When Bette first met her husband, she was taken by his “smoldering looks and banked fires.” He was from Brooklyn; she was from the Bronx. They had little in common and their “prospects were not good,” as Bette put it, but they got married anyway. Bette’s husband died in February 2020, which isolated her just before the rest of the world locked down. On today’s episode, Bette shares the secret to what kept her and her husband together for decades — and how their long love has helped her cope.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Love now.
0:07.0	And do your phone, love now.
0:09.0	I love it.
0:10.0	It's stronger than anything.
0:11.0	I love it.
0:12.0	And I love you more than anything.
0:13.0	I love it.
0:14.0	Love.
0:15.0	From The New York Times, I'm Anna Martin, and I'm Miele.
0:19.0	And this is Modern Love.
0:23.0	Miele, you're the editor of Modern Love Projects, and you picked out this episode today because you really love it.
0:29.0	I really love this essay mostly because I really love the essayist, Betty Ann Mosquitz.
0:35.0	So Betty had just lost her husband of 50 plus years or something like that on the eve of the pandemic.
0:42.0	But she kind of has the surprising approach to life and to that really difficult moment.
0:48.0	And it all stems from the love that she shared, which I think is so striking that love can be this kind of sustaining force.
0:57.0	It's written by Betty Ann Mosquitz and read by Suzanne Torrin.
1:04.0	The wall must have moved into the doorway when I wasn't looking, and I walked straight into it as I was rushing out of the kitchen.
1:17.0	I had just burned my thumb on the oven rack while pulling out a casserole.
1:22.0	Having forgotten, it was hot.
1:25.0	This was before the pandemic, but after the funeral.
1:31.0	What are the chances that becoming widowed on the eve of the pandemic and practicing self-isolation in grief will give me some perspective on life and death?
1:44.0	Or put another way, will I survive?
	...

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