It was the death of a colleague that brought about life changes for myself. The platitudes of others that were well meant, struck a chord.
‘Too young to die.’
‘Had so much to live for.’
‘Never see his grandchildren grow up.’
‘His dreams would never be realised.’
I mused on these for weeks, long after the funeral. My life sounded wonderful to an outsider, a mortgage free house, a caring wife, and two grown up children. I had married young, and had to take on huge responsibilities, from the start. My first born, Charlie, nearly arrived before the wedding, Charlotte just two years later. With a growing family, my own dreams had been locked away. I’m not saying I resented my life, I’d brought the problems on myself, I knew that. It’s just that I didn’t want to die like Richard, whisked away before he found his happy place. As far as I could see, there were three choices: –
Keep my thoughts to myself and carry on as usual. I knew that since I had my revelation that life was passing me by, this would still make me unhappy. So this didn’t really seem much of an option.
Try to enhance my current existence with lifestyle changes, do what I wanted to do, at least some of the time. I still would have responsibilities, of course, but. this seemed to be a better path to take.
The third option was the most obvious and the most terrifying. I could give everything up, and leave. There could be no turning back.
I found that the only person who would be able to understand was my wife. We both knew the sacrifices we had made, the bucket list items that never got off the ground, the dreams and inspirations that had been buried. We needed to talk.
Susan was sitting on the sofa, when I arrived home from work.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Yes sure, actually I’ve been working out how to talk to you.’
‘Is there something on your mind?’ I decided to let her go first.
‘We need to change our lifestyles. Ever since Richard’s funeral, I’ve been thinking of all the things he didn’t achieve.’
‘Go on’ I said.
‘I think we need to complete our bucket lists before time runs out on us.’
I knew Susan and myself often thought alike but this was uncanny, I began wandering if I’d left any travel brochures on display.
‘And’ she hesitated, ‘there’s things I want to do on my own.’
‘Such as?’ I muttered, wondering where this was going.
‘Oh, you know, Line Dancing, holidays with the girls, cinema trips, I know you hate them, but I want to live a little.’
I looked at her and laughed out loud.
‘Of course you should do all those things and more.’
She embraced me. ‘I knew you would understand.’
We chatted on through the night, making dreams become reality. Neither of us wanted to go down, without a fight.
