Proof

Author’s Note: This essay was written June-September 2025, two years after the passing of my husband Clark. It is the third essay in a collection of stories about moving forward after losing my spouse.

How does one prove the worth of a marriage? I faced that task literally when I applied for my deceased husband’s Social Security benefits after my 60th birthday last spring. After jumping through the obligatory hoops that come with navigating a bureaucratic process, the bigger question was, how do I prove it in the figurative sense? What does it mean to prove a marriage?

Clark, my husband and business partner for nearly 30 years, died in 2023 after a devastating cancer diagnosis and seven months of treatment. So much of the past three years has been about the cruelties of cancer, dealing with the aftermath of his death, and moving forward with my life. When I thought about this question, I asked myself, what did our marriage mean?

Our marriage almost did not happen, as Clark never wanted to marry. He didn’t believe in it, or so he said. It took five years of dating and an ultimatum for him to propose. Once we were married, a switch flipped. He was all in. We had both been ‘adulting’ for more than a decade and fully understood how challenging life could be. Being married allowed us to overcome challenges together. It was nice to have someone to discuss career, financial, and family matters.

We held shared values as well, including our views on our careers. Even before we married, we both had aspirations to start our own ventures. Two years in, Clark pulled the trigger first. He called me at work and asked, “Do you mind if I quit today?” We didn’t have a clue about what that meant, but I didn’t flinch and immediately said, “Of course not.” He started a consultancy that would develop into the company we grew together over the next 27 years.

Five years later, 9/11 happened. Prior to this tragedy, my plan had been to leave my corporate job at the end of the month and join the company he started. Despite our worries about the state of the world, this time he did not flinch when I still wanted to put in my resignation after the chaos and turmoil that followed the terrorist attacks.

It was difficult to separate the business from our marriage. It became a labor of love, on par with having children in other couples’ marriages. Owning a business was an uphill climb, and we celebrated when we reached a new milestone and cried together when we suffered setbacks.

Clark and I had to figure out how to live on meager salaries while we plowed profits back into the company, build a national presence, and transition from consulting to a software subscription model.

Years of toil and sacrifice finally paid off. We had successfully grown the business into an international data analytics software company. The business was thriving, but after more than two decades, it took its toll mentally and physically. We survived the Great Recession and COVID, and it wasn’t easy.

Aside from starting and growing our business, our marriage was about traditions and rituals. We got married one week before Christmas in 1994, so the holidays were always special. I remember our first Christmas as a married couple, eager to decorate our home, but Clark wanted to decorate the outside. It was one of the first situations we had to compromise. I decorated the inside using all the beautiful ornaments we had received as wedding gifts. He went to K-Mart and came home with tacky red lights and 20-inch plastic candy canes, draping our patio wall with the lights and pounding nails to hang the candy canes. It was hideous, but he was so proud.

I remember our last Christmas together too. He was too weak to help much, but he went with me to buy all new LED lights at Lowe’s and stood by while I put them on the large bushes in front of our house. He continued to love having outside lights and decorations throughout the course of our marriage, saying it was our gift to the neighborhood.

When we bought our first condo, I had ideas on how to make it feel like ours, though I lacked the know-how and money. Regardless, Clark encouraged me when I implemented numerous DIY projects I saw in home décor magazines and on my favorite show, Trading Spaces. The craziest one was gluing hundreds of painted 4 x 4 inch wooden squares to a paneled wall in the living room of our second condo. We spent hours in our garage that summer sanding and painting wooden squares my dad had cut for us. Fortunately, my design tastes improved during our marriage. Our budget did too. We enjoyed scouring galleries and antique stores for art and mid-century modern furniture when we bought a 1900 carriage house in downtown Columbus 10 years before Clark died.

Music played an important role in our married life. Clark introduced me to the music of Frank Sinatra. We bought a four-CD set of more than 100 songs spanning three decades and listened to those songs repeatedly. “Fly Me to the Moon” and “The Way You Look Tonight” became house favorites. Years later, we instituted Music Night on Friday evenings during cocktails. We took turns playing songs from our youth. A few of my favorite artists—Queen, Journey, Meatloaf, Guns N’ Roses, and his—Jackson Browne, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. We always ended the night with The Beatles’ “Let It Be,” which became a personal anthem for us. The song is still triggering for me when I hear it randomly pop up on my car radio.

Our health and wellness were important threads in the fabric of our marriage. Clark became a marathoner, and I cheered him on in countless races and put up with the endless training schedules. When I tired of sitting on the sidelines, I trained and completed my one and only marathon with him in 2004, the year he qualified for Boston. He continued running throughout the rest of his life while I dabbled with countless other fitness crazes (see below), and his final marathon in Houston was only a year before he died.

I had my own fitness crazes through the years, and Clark went along with all of them. It started with step aerobics. And who can forget Tae Bo? He even went to a live session with me to see Billy Blanks, founder of Tae Bo, at the Arnold (Schwarzenegger) Classic that’s held annually in Columbus. We started taking spinning classes together when we joined the Columbus Athletic Club, trained and participated in several triathlons, and became Orange Theory Fitness aficionados. I bought all the Mari Winsor Pilates CDs. There were also many home equipment trials—stair stepper, NordicTrack, Peloton, hand weights and bands. I was always on a diet, and he did them all with me. The Zone. No sugar. Vegetarian. Vegan. Jenny Craig. Weight Watchers. The list is endless. The most infuriating thing was when he lost weight and I didn’t.

Clark’s diagnosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer in the summer of 2022 marked my final act of love. I became his caregiver, advocate and cheerleader. When his health declined quickly seven months into treatment, I made difficult end-of-life decisions for him because he could not. We had living wills in place, but what was once abstract became very real.

Clark was always sure I would outlive him. He was six years older, and statistically, women live longer than men. He was adamant that I would be financially secure as I aged. Thanks to his preparation and the success of our business, I am blessed to have the financial resources that allow me to focus on my creative writing passion. This was his last act of love for me.

I sold my shares in the business a year after losing him. I always told him I didn’t want to run the company without him, and I was right. It was impossible to separate the business from him or our marriage.

Clark would have been shocked I was even applying for Social Security benefits. He was sure Social Security would not survive, believing the money would run out after the first wave of Baby Boomers cut their swath through the retirement field and picked off every last dollar, leaving nothing for the rest of us.

When I took part in a phone appointment, the administrator asked for proof of marriage. I told her I had a marriage certificate from the church where our ceremony took place.

“I’m not sure the church-issued certificate will work,” she responded. “I’d suggest you stop by the Social Security office. We can review the document and let you know if it will serve as proof of marriage. Otherwise, you’ll have to go to the courthouse for the marriage abstract.”

I went to the Social Security office the day after my phone appointment, marriage certificate in hand. I took a number and found a seat in the dismal office. Rows of plastic chairs bolted together served as the waiting area, and posters, bulletins and notices plastered the walls, forming an ugly and depressing kind of wallpaper.

When they called my number, I went to the plexiglass window and explained why I was there. The woman took the paper and said, “I’ll be right back.”

I waited dutifully while she went in back to consult with someone. She came back a few minutes later, walked over to the copier, came back to her desk, stamped the copy she had made and handed me the original. “You’re good. We will process your application.”

I was relieved I didn’t have to make a trip to the courthouse, but I found it ironic that the certificate from the church served as proof of marriage. Clark’s idea for our wedding was to visit the county courthouse during lunch one day for a quick ceremony. He did not want to get married in a church, much less the Catholic church. But once he knew how important it was to me, he even went to Pre-Cana (marriage prep) classes with me, a requirement for a church wedding. Now that’s love!

When I remember our life together, it’s the small moments and little traditions I miss the most. Getting a donut every Fourth of July, followed by a home improvement project. Endless conversations about everything. The endearments he called me. Inside jokes and stories. Our morning coffee before heading to the gym or running trail. In the early days of grief, these memories made me cry. Now, I smile when I think of them.

Marriage means different things to different people. Ours was not perfect, but it was loving and solid. Further proof comes from something Clark wrote a few months before he died.

More than a roll call of maladies, 2022 represents a love story of how love crafted over 28 years pulled us through a difficult year. Love represents the acceptance of responsibility. These things matter because over the course of our marriage, we developed traditions, a commitment to improving our homes, and a desire to care for each other.

Reflecting on my memories and reading Clark’s words, I realize I don’t have to prove our marriage to anyone, especially myself, but it is certainly nice to remember.