In the end

Yesterday afternoon I met J for a drink at a nearby pub. It seems like such a civilized thing to do as an adult person, to drink beer while the sun is still in the sky. They encourage this behaviour, you know, by selling $4 pints, which was okay by me. We each had two pints and I was still home by 5:30. J is getting married next summer and I have threatened to wrestle with his mother for the right to walk him down the aisle. I mean, this isn’t a joke. I am going to start weight training. J is one of my favourite people in the world, so much so that I am willing to fight his mother, who I also happen to think pretty highly of, apart from her insistence on being involved in her son’s wedding instead of me. 

J told me about his father-in-law (to be) dying from brain cancer. He chose to end his life using MAID and J talked about going to be there with him at the end of his life, supporting his partner through this. This story was particularly significant because J and I normally laugh together, only laugh together, because J is one of the funniest people in the whole world. And most of the time when we get together we just make each other laugh. But yesterday was different. He told me that they are talking about adoption, which is incredibly expensive if you go through a private agency. And he told me about being sent out to buy potato chips because that was what his future father-in-law wanted to eat for his final meal, and wandering around the grocery store trying to decide which chips, because no one had specified. And wanting so much to get it right that he bought every kind, bags and bags and bags, so as not to disappoint.  And for some reason this was the part of the story that made me spill over. And that’s not something we have done together before either. And when we hugged goodbye in the parking lot we said I love you, and that was also new for us. I think we are both growing up.