About that letter I was going to write to my wife, Ellie, in case of my demise

As some of you know, I recently signed up to join this year’s Northwest Passage Expedition, starting next month. As with all expeditions, this one is not entirely free of any risks to one’s health or life. Even though the risks appear to be comparatively low.

So, in essence, I felt compelled to draft a last letter to my wife, which she would only be permitted to open in case of my confirmed demise. As with all important decisions in my life, I asked for her advice.

Now, I feel like I should provide some further background on this. It feels much more recent. But it was indeed on a hot, humid Saturday late afternoon in mid-July 2008, that Ellie & I first met, here in London. People on the street all seemed happy. No one knew that a mere two months later, my employer Lehman Brothers was going to collapse and almost take the rest of the world down with them.

While I immediately felt attracted to this brunette, it also occurred to me that this one wasn’t one for light conversations. Less than an hour into our date, the two of us disagreed strongly on a matter. I think it had to do with the best approach to the credit crunch. My future wife matter-of-factly laid it out to me, why my suggestion was rather rubbish, ridiculous even. So I asked her, ‘are you calling me an idiot?’ I’ll never forget her response. She said ‘no, that would be unprofessional.’ And not an iota of irony in it.

The following day, I told all my friends that this one might be a keeper. Hot. In the looks-department and fire in her soul. Bit of a loner. Fiercely independent. Doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Not necessarily easy to warm up to, but someone to steal horses or fight zombies with, once you got to know her.

When my friends met her for the first time, they had nice things to say, but they were all asking what had happened to the girl I had mentioned. Ellie is a totally different person in public, which always fascinated me.

Naturally, her oldest friends from school know her real personality. And the folk she interacts with in her day job as a lawyer usually realise early on, that this one is not going to be pushed around. However, literally everyone else who encounters my dear wife, sees a rather shy, even marginally insecure, super-pleasant, sweet, calm, collected girl, with no capacity for ill thought or mischief.

Which is funny to me.

I more or less moved in with her a few days after we met. For a little while I rented a room in a nearby shared flat, but my flatmates rarely got a glimpse of me. Three months later I hired an airplane which drew a banner. Ellie kissed me, but didn’t say anything for what felt like a whole hour.

Then the first thing she asked was how much I had paid for the plane. When I told her how much, she told me off. When I asked her how she felt about the banner, she said yes. Tough cookie.

So when I asked her what to put into that letter, I wasn’t expecting her to well up, shower me with kisses, and tell me how much she loved me. But she still surprised me. With a completely straight face. No giggles.

Her first ten requests were all in relation to apologies she demanded for completely irrelevant incidents. Like when I had called her mom ‘difficult’ for ruining that time when I had tried to cook Bavarian pork roast for Ellie’s family in Sydney by taking over the helm in the kitchen. Me pointing out, that calling her mom ‘difficult’ had clearly been the most positive option, out of a large variety of decidedly less positive ones on the day, did not help.

I was told that another no-no had been calling one of her girlfriends pretentious behind her back for banging on about the fact that she’s childhood friends with that actor from that costume drama who has that six-pack.

Her following request was for my lasagna recipe.

And the pork medallions with spaetzle in mushroom cream sauce. I had already passed on most of my other recipes, like the Bavarian cheese cake or the emperor’s mess.

Next up were requests for apologies for slightly more relevant matters. Admittedly, that banner-pulling plane had been a tad excessive back then, and yes, it had been a a bad idea to rent that room in that shared flat right after we had met.

She even demanded an apology for the fact that I had, on our first date, insisted that we visit the Cy Twombly exhibition at Tate Modern. By way of background, my cultured cutie had mentioned a keen interest in modern art over the phone, and I had spent some ridiculous amount, like forty quid or so, on getting us two tickets for that exhibition. I was not going to take no for an answer, was I. And no, it doesn’t matter who you are. Or if you like Twombly or not.

Further apologies were requested in rather strong language for the fact that I had apparently, completely unbeknownst to me, ‘coerced’ my petite potato into pot-holing, high-altitude trekking, and rock-climbing.

I had never written that song for her, that I had promised. (You try finding words that rhyme with ‘Ellie’, I dare you. Yes? See what I mean? This one does not go on my tab.)

It would seem, that I had never replaced the faulty extractor fan in our kitchen.

Next time I buy a rowing machine for a cool grand, I should start using it on a daily basis, before I sign up last minute for some dumb expedition, I learned.

My wife asked me, if I remembered that lovely orange corduroy jacket with the green elbow patches. The one I had purchased five years ago. But which I seem to have lost somewhere while out and about? Turns out it had been given to charity by an unidentified third party.

I was reminded that I owe my darling wife £46.53 + VAT for a bill she had paid on my behalf a few weeks back. We have a shared wallet, but that does not include arms, oil, or drugs, such as a crate of Rioja.

Her very wise conclusion was, that I should make it clear, that she shouldn’t dwell on the mishap for too long. The motto should be to simply move on. Bygones be bygones and all.

Other than that, my wife just gently recommended that I should perhaps consider not to whine about my death all day like I had whined about my lack of comfort on that hill we had been hiking on a few years ago. At the time I had fondly nurtured a pulmonary edema and haemorrhages in both eyes.

This might sound like a rough sense of humour, and perhaps it is, but my wife and I both burst out laughing and rolled over the floor for a while. Looks like I won’t have to write any stupid letters for now, anyway. She’s a keeper, as far as I’m concerned. Fingers crossed, I’ll be a keeper, too.