Chaz Loves Roger

They are husband and wife. She is Chaz Ebert. He is Roger Ebert. He is, as I’m sure you know, a well-known film critic.

How do I know that Chaz loves Roger? That they are husband and wife is indicative, but not definitive. Such relationships are complex, not to be taken for granted. Nor at face value.

I do not have any inside information. What I know about their relationship, I know from a long profile of Ebert that appeared in Esquire Magazine earlier this year. It was written by Chris Jones, who knows how to tell a story.

The story he told was not the Chaz and Roger story. It was the Roger story. Not all of it, but just a report on the current situation. And Ebert’s current situation is one that deeply involves his wife.

As you know, Ebert has had a bad battle with cancer these past few years. The spirit’s won. His mind is as sharp as ever. His pen as productive, perhaps more so now that he’s gone on the web with his blog. He is happy, and conducts his life with sure and optimistic purpose.

But his body has taken a beating. He lost his lower jaw and, in consequence, cannot eat or drink. The liquid diet has trimmed him down. Nor can he talk. He’s got a repertoire of hand gestures. He scribbles notes on a pad and on post-it notes. He can ‘speak’ through a device that synthesizes speech from his written text.

He’s become frail beyond his years and cannot climb stairs. Nor can he watch three or four films at one screening. He requires a live-in nurse. Chaz accompanies him everywhere.

Jones tells us all this, and in some detail, while also recounting the story of his his relationship to his beloved compeer, interlocutor, colleague, and friend, the late Gene Siskel. These accounts are interwoven with reporting on Ebert’s activities over two days or so: a film screening; a reception for the new owners of the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert’s journalistic home; dinner out with a friend; and a walk in the park.

Some time during these two days Chaz decides that Roger must take a walk  around a pond in nearby Lincoln Park, as they’ve done many times in the past few years:

At the start of their walk around the pond, Ebert worries about falling on a small gravel incline. Chaz lets go of his hand. "You can do it," she says, and she claps when Ebert makes it to the top on his own. Later, she climbs on top of a big circular stone. "I'm going to give my prayer to the universe," she says, and then she gives a sun salutation north, south, east, and west. Ebert raises his arms into the sky behind her.

It was reading that paragraph that the thought slash feeling hit me: Chaz loves Roger. It came to me just like that, unbidden, almost a little voice in my head: “she loves him.”

Read the paragraph again. Think about it. Here’s the first half:

At the start of their walk around the pond, Ebert worries about falling on a small gravel incline. Chaz lets go of his hand. "You can do it," she says, and she claps when Ebert makes it to the top on his own.

It is, I suppose, a bit like the encouragement a physical therapist might give. But the therapist is paid to provide a service, and coaching is part of the service. It’s also like a child encouraging a young learning to walk. Roger is not a young child and Chaz is not his mother. Yet, there’s a reason some spouses refer to one another with terms of parental endearment and address, Mama, Daddy, or perhaps Mother, Father.

It’s the second half of the paragraph that got me:

Later, she climbs on top of a big circular stone. "I'm going to give my prayer to the universe," she says, and then she gives a sun salutation north, south, east, and west. Ebert raises his arms into the sky behind her.

What an extraordinary gesture. At once intimate and open to the universe. And they do it together. They’re in it together. The Universe.

Yes, Chaz loves Roger.

And Roger loves Chaz.