I find myself in a dark hallway. At the end of the hall is a door, slightly open with white light spilling around its edges. The hall is full of galoshes and rain coats. I walk slowly and silently to the door and carefully look into the next room. Morning light fills up the room and is painful at first, but as my eyes adjust I see that in the room is a plain wooden table next to a window. A woman sits at the table facing the window. A teacup sits at her elbow. Outside is the lake, the waves rush up the shore and recede with calming repetition which becomes like stillness after a few minutes. The woman is extremely still. Something about her is familiar. She is an old woman; her hair is perfectly white and lies long on her back in a thin stream, over a slight dowager's hump. She wears a sweater the color of coral. The curve of her shoulders, the stiffness in her posture say here is someone who is very tired, and I am very tired, myself. I shift my weight from one foot to the other and the floor creaks; the woman turns and sees me and her face is remade into joy; I am suddenly amazed; this is Clare, Clare old! And she is coming to me, so slowly, and I take her into my arms.

Tears escape from her soft brown eyes, falling down her wrinkly cheek. We stand there holding each other for what felt like a short period of time. We eventually part. I slowly, carefully move my body away from an 82 year old Clare.

"I thought you'd never come" she said through a smile I might never see again - the Clare in the present is too worried about my death to ever truly smile.

"How are you?" I ask her.

"I'm good" she said.

But I could see in her eyes, (the eyes that could see through all my mistakes, the eyes that never once doubted me) that she was lying. Clare, my truelove, didn't have much time left. But I didn't want to think about this, I didn't want to think about the fact that someday, somewhere, Clare wouldn't exist. There was so much to ask and I didn't know where to start, so I started by saying the four most true and not meaningful enough words that I have ever said.

"I love you, Clare."

It was then that she lost her balance. I quickly reached out for her, gently catching her in my arms. When I looked at her to ask if she was okay, she looked somewhat different, and it was then that I unwillingly realized what was happening. Her wrinkly skin was turning whiter and whiter by the second and I could feel her body slowly getting colder. I was now sure of it, Clare, my Clare was… dying.

Here in my arms, she took her last breaths; while in the present my life too was being shortened from hours, to minutes, to seconds.

"Oh my God" I managed to say.

"Don't do this Clare, not now"

I then realized I was crying, my tears slowly falling down my face, and onto the floor. The floor Clare had stepped on as she grew old without me.

"Please" I whispered.

I then quickly reached for the phone and started dialling 911, but before I pressed "call' I felt something cold gently taping my arm. I looked down and saw Clare's hand.

She managed to say, "Stop! I don't want my last… minutes to… be in an ambulance. I want them to be here… in your arms."

I then hung up the phone and gently placed it back on the floor. The way she had said it, so desperately, so innocently, made not obeying her impossible. I always knew this would someday happen, but I didn't think I would be there to witness it with my own eyes. I didn't want to be there. I wasn't prepared to see the love of my life leave this cruel world.

"I love you, always have, and always will" I said, "thank you for being you, because it was you who saved me from complete self destruction. It was you who made me the man I am today. Clare, you are the only reason I don't completely hate what I am, because what I am brought me to you, what I am brought me here."

She looked at me, vulnerable, real, and smiled her last smile, took her last breath and said "I… love you too, Henry."

And then I was gone, and she was too.