On How Long We Should Stay As Two United Halves

How long? you asked

Until I cannot remember my name or what I ate for breakfast. Until the hair on my head has grown gray and thinned with age. Until I look in the mirror at a face I no longer recognize. Until my dear friends have passed away and I know soon, I will join them. Until I’m confined to a home, to a bed I never get up from. Until a nurse must take care of me and watch my every move, force-feeding me pills and applesauce with a plastic spoon. Until our children bring our uncomfortable looking grandchildren in to see me, shuffling their feet across the carpeted floor, unable to make eye contact with me because all I can do is stare at the moving pictures on the television.

Instead, I half-smiled with a shrug, and replied, pretty long.