Way back when I first started having symptoms, my husband came home with a surprise for me: a picture of a tandem bike with the words, “Where you go, I will go.”

Its meaning had several layers for us. On the surface, I had been grieving the loss of one of my favorite hobbies: bike riding. On my worst days (and at that time, they were all bad days), I just couldn’t exert the physical effort needed to ride a bike. But I was also working through waves of grief and wondering what my life would look like in the “post-illness” world I was facing, including my marriage. I worried that my husband would feel trapped with me, that I would become more his patient than his wife. The gift was his quiet way of promising me, “We’re in this together, no matter what.”

And so, a tandem bike became our symbol for marriage with chronic illness, a beautiful representation of the new life we were trying to create together.

Fast forward through the years, and last summer we had the opportunity to buy our own tandem bike. We had been watching for some time before one popped up used on the local market. It was beautiful: a dark blue vintage bike from the 1960s. It was love at first sight!

It turns out tandem biking was a brilliant choice for us. Even on bad days, it allowed us to get out and clock a few miles together in the sunshine without over-exertion on my part. We quickly learned how to pedal in synch and get going smoothly. As I grew tired, he could pick up the bulk of the work of pedaling (although, with our pedals being linked, my feet continued to move). We even managed to pack a picnic into the wire basket on the front and bike several miles along the river to enjoy a meal together on a swinging park bench.

Like all things, though, it turned out tandem biking wasn’t all easy. And I don’t mean physically because of my illness… In order to save me as much work as possible, I rode in the rear seat. My husband rode in front, doing most of the work of pedaling and steering for us. What I didn’t know, until I got behind him on a tandem bike, was how much I liked to be in control! Since he is taller than me, riding in the back meant I had very little view of what was ahead. I couldn’t anticipate turns or stops, or see where he was leading us on the road. Nor could I make any adjustments for myself. I was completely at the mercy of his choices about where we would go, how wide our turns would be, how suddenly we would stop, and how quickly we would pedal.

He, on the other hand, was completely responsible for us. It was down to him to plan routes that wouldn’t require more exertion than I could handle. He was the one who would continue to pedal as I coasted behind him. He had to choose when to turn and where. And because I was in the back panicking at sudden movements, he had to learn to communicate all of those decisions.

Our marriage has grown a lot through the ups and downs of chronic illness, and in the end, brought us much closer. But tandem biking… Tandem biking took us to even deeper depths together! But as we’ve logged the miles, I’ve slowly settled into the peace of trusting him to lead us well. I no longer worry about where he might take us or how widely we may turn. He has learned to lead us gently, too. To plan routes that are manageable and peaceful. He’s learned to communicate with me clearly so that we can move literally as one through our journeys on the tandem bike.

It turns out a tandem bike is not just an apt metaphor for marriage with chronic illness, but for marriage in general. It takes two people, choosing to go in the same direction no matter what. It takes two people communicating clearly, keeping the other person in step as life winds and twists. It takes trusting one another to make decisions that will be good for both. It takes, in many ways, becoming truly one with another person.

And I love everything about it.