Conversation
There are things we no longer talk about.
1. the future - hopes, dreams, plans, who our children will grow up to be, who we will grow up to be
2. the past
3. travel - the places we want to see, the trips we hope to take, adventurous sports we want to try
4. our careers
Our list of acceptable topics has shrunk to
1. politics and world events
2. other peoples' lives
3. TV, books and theatre
4. daily minutiae
I miss those deep expansive conversations, open and honest discussions about where our lives are going and who we want to be. When you've been with the same person since the age of 19, you have a lot of these conversations. These conversations have led us to hitchhike to Morocco, learn Chinese, travel in Japan and move our young family half way around the world, and back again. They've made us who we are, as a couple and as individuals.
These conversations have stopped now because our future together is lost and it breaks our hearts to dwell on what might have been. At some point, not today or tomorrow or this month, my love will leave me, and leave this world.
Since March we have known that J's tumour is back and this time has company. We've understood that the treatments available will only ever be palliative. With luck, the drugs will give us more time but they can't ever give us back our shared future. That is lost to us now, and the chasm of life without him awaits.
1. the future - hopes, dreams, plans, who our children will grow up to be, who we will grow up to be
2. the past
3. travel - the places we want to see, the trips we hope to take, adventurous sports we want to try
4. our careers
Our list of acceptable topics has shrunk to
1. politics and world events
2. other peoples' lives
3. TV, books and theatre
4. daily minutiae
I miss those deep expansive conversations, open and honest discussions about where our lives are going and who we want to be. When you've been with the same person since the age of 19, you have a lot of these conversations. These conversations have led us to hitchhike to Morocco, learn Chinese, travel in Japan and move our young family half way around the world, and back again. They've made us who we are, as a couple and as individuals.
These conversations have stopped now because our future together is lost and it breaks our hearts to dwell on what might have been. At some point, not today or tomorrow or this month, my love will leave me, and leave this world.
Since March we have known that J's tumour is back and this time has company. We've understood that the treatments available will only ever be palliative. With luck, the drugs will give us more time but they can't ever give us back our shared future. That is lost to us now, and the chasm of life without him awaits.
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