Given a choice, I would hold fast to you --- would stop the slow erosion of our lives. It isn't fair that we who've loved so long should be the losers, even though we love. We are not what we were, nor will we be the travelers of our dreams, and journey far. We try to hold the edges of our lives and yet they slip away, out of our grasp like sands the waves consume along the shore. The edges crumble, but the center holds -- you are still you, and I am still myself. That will not change. The loving will endure, through illness, age, and death (the final loss). I cling to what we have, and push away the thought of how, by inches, as I watch you seem somehow diminished, letting go of little daily things you cannot hold. We walk this path together, after all, and if you stumble, I will take your hand, and if I tremble, you will hold me tight. All is not lost to the approaching night.
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