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 ...

Starting at the end.

This series of photos, found by way of Dooce (her post here), is ...

I don't have words.

Dooce's 1,000+ commenters used good ones: beautiful. haunting. moving.

A word of caution: don't click on the link if you're not up to it, for whatever reason. It is from an exhibit of black-and-white photographic portraits taken before, and after, death. Text accompanies the photographs, providing a glimpse into the person who was present in the "before" photo, departed in the second.

The message is: life is not all there is. One commenter put it a bit trenchantly: you can go between one click of the shutter and the next. Live before the second click.

Indeed.

I am over 50 years old. Every day is a gift, to be unwrapped and lived. In fact, my life is happier, better, and far, far more delightful than at any time since my childhood. It has taken resolve and determined self-discovery, leaving behind the notions which bound my thinking and kept me shut in and frightened of every day.

I'm a believer. That will be clear as I develop this blog. And I have a friend, the dearest of friends, who became the man I love more years ago than I care to count, now. That story, too, may be told as this blog unfolds.

But, for now, let's start with the end. I've been with Death. While I know it is not the end, it does mean the end of our life here, on this planet, in this universe. In two hundred years will anyone know or care about the things which trouble us today?

Or, in two hundred years, there might be something we left behind, unknowingly or by intention, which will be our gift to the future. For many of us, it's our children. I have none. For some, it's our work. My paid employment is not something I will ever be remembered for. I think we each know what our own, particular, special gift can be. For one, it's the bridge built - literally or figuratively. For another, a good and helpful law. A third might leave behind music, or art ... photographs.

For me, the gift I have to offer my future is writing.

Contemplating the end, I have the resolve to begin.