UPDATED: You can now hear this essay read by the actor Chris Messina Jacobs in Modern Love: The Podcast. Look for the “play” button below or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music.

My wife and I used to joke about how much better we were than other couples, how we never had the petty fights and misunderstandings that everyone else seemed to be having. Together we had weathered layoffs, a cross-country move, multiple hospitalizations from my cystic fibrosis and the housebreaking of two terrier puppies.



Yet somehow we always managed to come out stronger than before. Our love was indestructible.

Then she threatened to leave me six weeks after I had a double lung transplant.

When you’re being evaluated for a transplant, there are a lot of things the nurses and medical professionals tell you over and over again to drive home the significance, to make sure you’re truly prepared, and probably to keep you from suing them later.