In the Time We Have Left

Two years ago, I sat at a table in Cafe Kindred waiting for my first Match.com date of 2018. When a man with the bluest blue eyes and knuckle-deep dimples came in, I got up and asked him, “Are you Dan?” From that moment on, my life turned incrementally wonderful because he was Dan.

That morning we talked for hours about our pasts. What we had in common: taking care of sick spouses, going to doctors, handling bad prognoses, and eventually losing the war with disease. And our crazy yet similar solutions to abiding grief: traveling abroad. I went to Paris, he to Florence. As he talked of Italy and his love of the language and Renaissance art and architecture, I thought: I could fall in love with this man.

And that is what has come to pass. Now we spend our days together. We plan trips, work on making our home comfortable, watch the birds and squirrels around our new “squirrel-proof feeder,” laugh about our spoiled cat, Zelda Marie. Life is simple and good.

We are onions, peeling ourselves before each other. There is always more to know. A seismic shift has occurred in my thinking: what does he enjoy, what bothers him, what is important to him, what does he ponder before he falls asleep at night. It is in his smallest pleasure, the smell of the evergreens on the door that makes me reluctant to take down the Christmas wreath. It is in his deep love of travel that I have become open to new countries and adventures.

All that I give to him, he gives to me. He understands my close friendships that have sustained me all these years. We enjoy our families together. We support one another in the difficulties that come with aging.

Still our relationship comes down to this: time. I was married for 37 years. Dan was married even longer. We don’t know how many years we have to give to each other, but we know our days are precious. We wish to compress everything we can be to each other into the time we have left.