Challenges
Wedding day: (L to R), Dr. and Mrs. G.J. Su, Tina’s parents, Tina Su Cooper, Douglas Cooper, Mrs. P. T. Cooper, Doug’s mother
Ting and I
by Douglas Winslow Cooper
“Please, God, don’t let her die,” I prayed as I walked
our dog around our little lake in
March 2004. Tina Su Cooper,
my beloved wife, had aspiration
pneumonia and was in a coma
at the Critical Care Unit of the
Orange Regional Medical Center
in Middletown, N.Y.
I had called 911 near midnight
the week before. Tina’s temperature had been rising alarmingly
fast. The EMTs got her to the
Emergency Room 20 minutes
before I could get there. She had
told them that she did not want
any invasive procedures, no tubes
down her throat, etc. I counter-
manded that, having her power of
attorney and knowing this was no
time for fuzzy thinking. Her MS,
especially when she was feverish,
had diminished her cognitive
abilities—abilities that had
earned her honors at Cornell
and Harvard universities.
“Do whatever you must to
save her life,” I instructed the
medical personnel. Later, when
she was out of the coma, but
unable to speak due to the air
tube that ran down her throat, I
asked her whether I had made the
right choice, to take all the steps
needed to save her life. Yes, she
nodded, emphatically, yes.
In the beginning
Our love story began in January
1963, with Cornell as a beautiful
backdrop. When Tina Su walked
into the language course I was
taking, Chinese 102, I saw my
feminine ideal: lovely, elegant
without pretension, graceful.
After a few coffee dates, I learned
that this Chinese-American
woman, born Su Ting-ting in
China, was also intelligent,
cheerful, talented, kind, and
more than somewhat attracted to
me, too. By Valentine’s Day, we
were officially in love and “going
steady.” When it was cold, we
would each shed one glove and
share my coat pocket. We loved
to walk and to talk, to hug and
to kiss. Bliss.
