“He knew it was something I didn’t want to do, because every time we spoke about it I would cry,” Mrs. French said. “When I told him that I had made arrangements, he said — and this is a man who can’t speak, so he had to muster every bit of energy he could — he said, ‘You did the best you could.’ ”

In April last year, Mrs. French placed her husband in a nursing home in Manhattan. Along with her sadness came feelings of relief and freedom. Soon after he was settled, she went out to dinner with friends for the first time in two years.

“At times, I ache for him to be back in the apartment,” she said. “But I ache for him to be back as him.”

She said that long after he ceased speaking, he continues to understand what she says.

“I remember asking his neurologist, ‘Will he know me?’ ” Mrs. French said. “And he said, ‘Oh, he’ll always know you. He might not be able to express it in a way that will be familiar to you or that you’ll like, but he’ll always know you.’ ”

She wondered what longings might drive her husband’s dreams:

“I asked him, ‘Do you talk in your dreams?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ And I asked him, ‘Do you dream about me?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ ”

She has had time to think about mortality, his and her own.

“Death to me has always been a wake-up call to live,” she said. “This is the endgame. Sometimes I get upset because I don’t think I have enough money, and sometimes I get upset because I think I do. You don’t necessarily want to live too long, but neither do you want to die.”

On most days, she spends several hours at the nursing home with her husband. She shaves him and sometimes climbs into bed with him to hold him and to nap together.