When our ancestors vowed “til death do us part” they were quite aware that their time together was limited. Women died: if not in child-birth, from setting their skirts on fire — as they moved coals around the open fire on which all food was cooked in the kitchen.

And men died: in the fields, by the depradations of disease: in camp, on the battle-field, and all too often hastened to their fate by the actions of the physician who bled, purged and scoured.

This did not stop grief and loss. Instead, that was part of the bargain. The survivor will mourn. As did Milton.

On His Deceased Wife

METHOUGHT I saw my late espousèd Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu’d from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was vail’d, yet to my fancied sight,
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin’d
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she enclin’d
I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night.

John Milton. 1608–1674