You can have mine.

She's young - very young, to my eyes - but she's a smart, dedicated physician. She told me she's expecting again, her face alight with joy. "But this is the last one," she said. There was sadness in her voice.

I didn't ask, of course... but I want to know: why? Why only two?

I hope it's not a physical reason of some kind.

If it is a choice, it must seem compelling to her ... but it's not her desire.

Conscious of her time, and mine, I didn't pursue it. But in the way I couldn't not-see her disappointment, I couldn't not-remember the day many years ago when my D.F. explained tearfully that he had to choose between me and the young woman who'd determined he would be hers alone, ... and he'd chosen her.

We embraced one last time, and wept. Then he left. I stood at the door and watched him go, watched him walk across the lawn.

"There goes my life," I said to myself. "I am watching my life walk away from me."

There wouldn't be another like him. No man I ever knew was so lovable, so healthy, so fond and dear and intelligent and funny and such a comfort. Not one. I wasn't tempted to marry until I found a man who was entirely different from the one I love - and I do mean entirely. He would not remind me of the one my heart yearned for.

And he would not be any kind of father I would inflict on any child.

I was his wife for many, many years. One day, it ended. Amicably, thank God, but with a definite finish.


My D.F. and I are together again.


We are in our 50s. He did have three kids with her. Three beautiful now-grown adults, each starting out on their own lives, too busy to pay much attention to their dad, except, I hope, to note his happiness.

It doesn't do any good to think about What Might Have Been, but I am guilty of it. Sometimes tears threaten at unexpected times.

If he and I had been together, we would have had way too many children.

He will have grandchildren, so my life will not be baby-free. I trust that it's God's timing, not mine. My life was not amenable to little ones when he and I were dating all those years ago, and it got a lot worse after he left. I can trust that all is as it should be in my life.

And I can pray for my doctor friend, that she will have what she wants, somehow. Because I am sure she's a very good mother.

I wanted to say to her: if you're stopping at two just because it's supposedly the magic number, but you really in your heart want more, and there's no other reason why you can't - then do it! Have the children I never did. Love them and cherish them and give them the abundant life which only a woman of your gifts can provide.

But I don't know her story, so I didn't say a word. I just listened, and thought: I must write about this, somehow.

My words are my children ...