With and Without

Rhona sometimes used to say to me that meeting me as she did when I was only twenty-five she had had the best years of my life. Truer word was never spoken. While she (to my life-long shame remorse and regret) unquestionably had some of the worst of me I like to think I hope that she also had — such as it is — all of the best of me. I was twenty-five when we met and forty-six when she died. That’s a hefty chunk of an important period of anybody’s life and Rhona had it. For all its lows as well as highs the downs as well as the ups — what else can you expect for two people together almost all the time for twenty-one years? — what Rhona and I had what we created was a life. And she was whatever anybody else says or thinks despite my grievous mistakes the centre of mine. There are no perfect people in this world but sometimes — just sometimes — two people can be perfect for each other.