In 1979, a few months after our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, a doctor listened to my husband's heart and identified a decrescendo murmur indicating a leaking aortic valve. Because Bill was a musician (as well as being a theater director), this description caught his attention. It was an apt metaphor for the rest of his life. He died just shy of our fiftieth anniversary after slowly fading from the effects of congestive heart failure. This is the story of our relationship and how we sought to maintain the balance and the romance as Bill's strength diminished and I took up the slack.