A Rare Man…

When Bill and I met over the phone via my daughter’s article he happened to read in the local newspaper, my husband of forty-six years had been dead nine years. But Bill’s wife of fifty-two years had died just three months prior. Bill was eighty, I seventy-five. Bill lived in Santa Cruz, I in Ojai.

Both interested in movies, books, music, art, food, drink, politics, nature, the family, theology, the cosmos–most everything on and beyond our planet—Bill and I began corresponding by email, two, three, four a day. After two months and hundreds of now love letters, we finally met face to face. Wanted /needed to be together. The Faculty Emeritus Professor was a Catholic, wouldn’t live in sin. I would have lived in his toolshed. To my surprise and chagrin, I learned an element in his family was horrified…asked him to cease and desist…honor his late wife for one year.

But I believed in my bones I’d waited seventy-five years for this man. Who knew how much time we’d have together?

Every Friday morning, Bill’s best friend, Todd Newberry, University of California at Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus of Biology, came over for coffee. Also a Princetonian, Todd had been a widower for some years—one night his beloved art historian wife Louise went out to their hot tub, and in the morning, Todd found her dead.

Bill and Todd had more than Princeton in common, but their childhoods not. Do you remember the J.J. Newberry stores?—five-and-dimes like Woolworth’s, an American institution. Todd’s grandfather played cello duets with Pablo Casals. Old Money was writ large over Todd… Bill’s people were elevated in thought, deed, and spirit…

Todd went to private school before Princeton, then took up marine biology—he made sea squirts his life’s work. “Why?” I once asked him. He had no answer past, “They interested me.”

A handsome fellow, soft spoken, Todd paid attention when you were speaking, laughed easily, gave swift opinions—sometimes they didn’t agree with yours.

Anyway, the two widowers had coffee here in the house every Friday morning, and one particular Friday in December, Bill was agitated, anxious, upset. He told Todd how much he wanted to be with this Sylvia Thompson—to marry her, but that several in his family were outraged. Had actually shamed him.

“What should I do, Todd?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Marry her—”

“You’re too old to wait. You’ve found someone, you’re lucky. You shouldn’t wait.”

This conversation went on for several weeks.

We married in February, Todd was Bill’s Best Man. We continued having coffee Friday mornings. I loved it, two gorgeous men at my table. In time Friday morning got switched to breakfast with Todd’s daughter, Ellen, on Sunday mornings. Then the last couple of years we’ve taken bagels or freshly-baked croissants to Todd’s house where his caregiver has set the table.

You see, although a few months younger than I, Todd’s health hasn’t held so well. Bill and I have had to visit him in the hospital, in nursing facilities, and then it was his house. But that’s been lovely, as his house is an authentic and elegant adobe with a garden his two daughters keep.

There’ve always been subjects for conversation. Although Todd was One of Those Who Didn’t Have A Television Set, he read every day’s New York Times and if you asked if he knew about, say, Marjorie Taylor Greene, he’d answer wryly, “Oh, sure.”

And of course Todd was a reader. Until the last couple of years, every other year he read  Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu again completely. “What are you reading this week, Todd?” was one of my favorite questions.

Damn, I just realized he won’t get to read our novel…(assuming it makes it into print). Hot Damn.

Speaking of books, Todd was a world-renowned birder, having written an elegant book, The Ardent Birder, On the Craft of Birdwatching. (I see a copy is available on Abebooks.) Availing himself of the Monterey Peninsula as a resource both for his marine interests and birding, Todd was engaged by birders from all over the world to be taken on tours of this rich magical coast. Once for my birthday present, he took Bill, two granddaughters, and me down to Elkhorn Slough for a fabulous morning of birding. We saw birds we’d never have seen were it not for Todd’s fabulous resources.

I might mention that Todd also taught writing at UCSC—thus his book is a treasure on two counts.

Professor Newberry also is reputed to be the one who championed the University of California at Santa Cruz’s emblem be a banana slug.

About Todd’s cello. As I mentioned, his grandfather was an intimate of Pablo Casals, and Todd grew up with that elevated music in the air. He loved the instrument, continued taking lessons into his eighties—but somehow, neither Bill nor I heard him play. Toddela (my Jewish little name for him) was a very quiet, modest man. Frustrating, actually…

Sunday before last we three had croissants—I think I chose a chocolate one for him. He and Louise had lived in Paris and I asked if those from Manresa bakery here were as good.

“Sure,” he said with a smile. It was a Todd answer. Overlaid with nuance I’d have to ponder later… I still can’t decide whether he meant Yes or No…

I’ll not be able to ask him. Todd died peacefully in his sleep last Monday.

I can’t bear it that we won’t have his company again.

This morning Bill said, “It’s like what you’ve been saying about David being gone. I can’t get used to the idea that Todd isn’t there.”

But for me, I will always remember that in who knows what measure, I am where I am, I am who I am, thanks to the counsel of Best Friend Professor Emeritus Newberry.

Which reminds me of one last virtue. As attractive as Todd was—and he was a fine looking fellow–Todd was true to Louise all the years he was alone. That broke my heart for the ladies who could have made him happy, but lord have mercy, I understood it.

Dear true blue Toddela.

P.S. I have no photograph of him I can share with you, but all you have to do is Google Andrew Todd Newberry and you’ll see lots of his pictures. I favor the one under “Oral History Memoir of … UC Santa Cruz”—him in grey cashmere…typical…