A lifetime

I've just been finishing reading Christmas letters from friends.  One friend, J, sends a booklet every year and I spent a couple of pleasant hours yesterday afternoon reading through it, taking in the rhythm of her life through the year.  Christmas letters are often vilified and scorned by journalists, who mock them mercilessly, but I always enjoy the annual updates from friends, and look forward to receiving them.

This year the booklet from J included sad news of the death of one of her friends, B, who she'd met in Greece in 1977.  This was the year I met J, when she arranged for me to be an au pair for a summer vacation.  She was already working in Greece, also as an au pair, and B was a dance teacher.  I used to meet J and B on Sundays and they showed me the sights of Athens.  We sat in Omonia Square drinking thick Greek coffee and eating delicious ice cream.  I have a photo showing the three of us, standing in the hot Athenian light, smiling down the years.  It was literally a lifetime ago, and now I feel sad thinking about the end of one of those lives.  I didn't keep in touch with B, so I don't know what her life brought her, during the years when both J and I have married and brought up our children.  I hope she was happy.

A lifetime passes so quickly, yet when you're young it seems you have such a long time in front of you, to fill with all sorts of experiences.  I was listening to the Carpenters yesterday, the song 'For All We Know'.

'Love, look at the two of us
Strangers in many ways
Let's take a lifetime to say
I knew you well...'

It's become a bit of a convention to say that nowadays it's difficult to keep a marriage going for a lifetime, because a lifetime is so long.  In the old days, the modern wisdom goes, people didn't live very long, so they didn't expect to be married for as long as 50 or 60 years - they might only be married for 10 or 20.  So it's not surprising that nowadays, when most people live longer, they can't sustain their marriages, but must move on, and have serial relationships.

But I don't necessarily agree.  I like the idea of taking a lifetime to get to know someone well.  I still want to find out more about my husband.  I still think it's worth working at the relationship so that I can say 'I know you well'.  It's a wonderful gift to have a whole lifetime to build that closeness, and I'm grateful that we've had the years we've had, and hope we will have many more.

A lifetime built on the friendships detailed in the annual letters.  A lifetime framed by love for another person, strengthened through the ups and the downs.