Perspective | In 56 years of marriage, here’s what I learned about love and adventure

One day, on a vacation early in our marriage, I found myself clinging like lichen to the steep stones of an ancient Mayan pyramid in Chichén Itzá, Mexico. Ward, assuming I was hot on his heels, had zoomed to the top. I, frozen in place halfway up, was terrified of my choices — clawing my way up to the top or slithering down to an ignominious death in the jungle. I clutched those pyramid stones so desperately that I’m sure my fingerprints are embedded there to puzzle future archaeologists.

Hanging there, I suddenly recalled my wedding vows. Had I really vowed to follow Ward up pyramids, towers and cliffs around the world? When a guide finally pried my claw-like fingers from the stone and talked me to the top, I found Ward there in a transcendental state gazing out at the fantastic jungle view.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

I didn’t have the strength to hurl my guidebook at him for I, too, was in a transcendental state — but mine was from oxygen deprivation, rubbery legs and the sheer, stomach-churning terror of peering down the plunging steps to the antlike tourists below.

However, after a few air-gulping minutes, with Ward’s arms supporting me, I literally inhaled the beauty that surrounded us. Sunlight and a sparkling blue sky intensified the tangle of greens in the jungle at our feet. Yes, at our feet!

We had climbed above the tree tops! I leaned my head on Ward’s shoulder. My spirit was quickened, my heart full to bursting, thankful for the power of love that had brought me to this breathtaking beauty. I felt free of fears that had grounded me, literally and emotionally.

I had always been courageous, confident and curious about our wonderful world. At age 7, with my mom’s permission, I took the train from our home in the Bronx to my dad’s office in Manhattan. Unbeknownst to me, she followed me, but I made it there on my own.

That curiosity and confidence increased because of Ward. Over the 56 years of our marriage, as my love and trust in his zest for adventure deepened, I was able to shrug off my anxieties and experience the riches that rush into your life when you open your heart.

In the beginning, though, it took a lot of my newfound courage to clamp on a snorkel mask and doggedly paddle after Ward as we explored Australia’s coral reefs under the steely gaze of moray eels, but I saw coral whose spectacular shapes and colors were bewitching.

In Venezuela, my heart pounded like surf on a beach as we looped and swooped in a frighteningly tiny prop plane through the mists at Angel Falls, whose tons of water gushed, knifelike and scarily, close to our wings, thousands of feet straight down sharp, bare stone cliffs. It was exhilarating! But I still gave silent thanks for Ward’s reassuring hand on my shoulder.

I’ve forgotten the pain of knotted calves from keeping step with Ward on the Great Wall of China and the steep terraces of Machu Picchu, but I’ll never forget those grand rocks and stones. I didn’t simply view them from a distance; I touched them, walked on them and was deeply moved by their ancient history.

In Peru, surely it was the power of love that tucked me next to Ward, huddled in the rain, in a motorized, flat-bottomed dugout that zipped us up the Amazon River, zigzagging to avoid submerged tree stumps and the menacing overhanging branches of vine-strangled trees.

In our jungle camp that night, every ounce of my courage and confidence was tested — and proved strong — when I decided not to disturb Ward, safely sheltered in his mosquito net in our thatched roof hut. Instead, by the faint glow of my mini-flashlight, I made my way down a narrow path to the one-hole outhouse in the Amazon jungle. There, trembling, but faintly triumphant, I swatted mosquitoes that seemed to me as big as bats.

As we aged, our activities were less nerve-racking. I recall one of our last special days when we were in our 80s and took a glider ride over the Maryland countryside in all of its autumnal beauty.

For days in advance, we envisioned ourselves soaring, free of gravity, floating like birds in ethereal silence. But when we finally squeezed ourselves into the glider’s one narrow hard seat, and took to the air, we discovered that the aircraft had hundreds of tiny cracks through which the wind howled, whooshed and whistled.

“Happy birthday,” I shouted into Ward’s ear — and both of us burst out laughing.

Three months later, on Jan. 1, 2021, Ward died.

On his final adventure, this time to heaven, once again he has beaten me. I can see him clearly, guidebook in hand, his body slightly bent under the weight of his trusty travel vest with all 13 pockets stuffed with maps, brochures, a water bottle and a notepad.

When I finally join him, he will wrap his arm securely around me, flash a grin and ask, “What took you so long?”