Ten years ago today, the man I was married to died of cancer. Adenoid cystic carcinoma. Diagnosed when he was 19, it had spread over a period of many years from his parotid gland to bones and organs throughout his body. Ultimately it went to his brain, causing a stroke from which he never recovered. I can't forget how he was in death, but I prefer to conjure him up in all his vital glory. He was a man of great appetites that ranged toward the high-brow: foie gras, foreign travel, fine cashmere. When I met him, I had left my glamorous life as a freelance writer in New York for what I imagined would be an even more glittering Hollywood phase, but things hadn't really turned out that way and I was a little lost. My thirties were rapidly running out, my second divorce was nearly three years behind me and I had a sneaking suspicion I was wasting valuable time on a number of fronts. But then I fell in love and the world turned. There were trips to China and Africa, pilgrimages to the French Laundry and Babbo, and a wedding—followed less than two years later by a funeral.
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