Dear Pat,
It's been a long long time for us, very unexpectedly. The long time part. We met when I was 19 and you were 20; we married when we were both 21. This is now a while ago, given that we are now both 68.
It's not unexpected because I didn't think we'd be together, it's unexpected because I never thought either of us would grow old. The world seems frozen when one is young. Time for some mysterious reason is not supposed to pass. And the young think they will be young forever.
I thought all of that.
It is not true, but that's OK too.
How long do we have now? No one can know. I tend to think, as I did when we were young, forever. I don't know whether or in what sense that is true.
All I know is, without you, I could not be myself.
Sting said it, out of what insight I cannot know:
Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
Always,
S