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I knew a man, once
His voice was always shaded with affection
Every time we said "Hello"
I could tell that he was happy
To interrupt his day
Just to speak to me
We would talk for hours, sometimes
About anything and nothing at all
As we shared our lives with each other
In friendship that turned to love
There was nothing surreptitious
His wife had no cause to fear
Nor did my husband need to be jealous
For this was not the love of lovers
(Although we did share intimacies that many lovers do)
But was, instead, a gift in a time of need for us both
For him, an understanding
For me, an unconditional acceptance
For we helped each other to endure
To become insightful
To change our focus in life
And seek happiness once again
When last we spoke
He could hear me only with difficulty
And he mourned the ability
To hear the nuance in my gentle voice
His apologies were teardrops on my heart
As I knew we had come to his end
The tumor, you see...was pressing upon an ocular nerve
He joked of losing his hair from the chemo and radiation
As though he cared about hair at all
The only thing that caused him misery
Was the drifting away
At a time when he was not yet ready to let go
"I love you" were our last words
He died that July
And I always wished
We could have said Good-Bye