There is so much to say. A good deal of it I have said before. But it so important -- at least to me -- that there should be mistake between us as you go forward into your new life and marriage in the US in a few months.
First, I apolgise for the unkind things I said in the last few days, in the email sent the other night particularly. You are by nature both demure and reserved. You and I both know that. It is only the fleeting emotions of anger and frustration that makes me say otherwise. And I know this hurts you and I deeply regret it. One of the things I should have valued most if we could have shared our lives together would have been the ability to praise you, as you rightly should be praised, to my family and others, and, just as importantly, that you should hear and believe these words yourself. You are the most unique and wonderful person I have ever met. And so, dear Sh, I apologise for the hurtful words I have used in the emotional typhoon that has been my state since arriving here in the UK last Sunday, a week ago today. This typhoon arises out of the deepest emotion I have ever know: my love for you.
You are worried that I will, as I have threatened, be in contact with your parents, or do something else that would bring you into disrepute. At times I am tempted somewhat to do that, but I can not. I am tempted because it would be a gamble that out of all of the upset and dislocation that might come out of such a thing, that I could somehow get you back. And if the gamble would only hurt me if it went wrong, I would do it. But such a gamble would hurt only you. And so I will not do it, could not do it, however much I might bluster and threaten at times. I may go to New York and see your family home out of curiosity, but I shall not make myself known to your family, nor disclose to them or anyone else the secret of our romantic relationship.
Although all seems over between us, and I may have seen you for the last time (although I have thought than two or three time before and been wrong), nothing is changed in the way I feel towards you. I have loved you without pause these last three and a half years, since Jupiter swung close as it will come to the earth in ten thousand years and I met you on Whipps Cross road on August 27th, 2003 . I have loved you even longer, actually, as I knew in the 5 or 6 weeks leading up to that day that I loved you. As when I offered to marry you in July of 2003 when you were crying in front of computer screen in G.town as some embassy or other had turned you down for a visa. Oh, how I wish you had said “yes” then! I am 49 years old; I know myself as well as I ever shall and I know this much: my love for you is something that springs out of the presence, and form, and very essence of you, and the love you have given me, and the memory I carry of all that. In a way that perhaps you can’t understand, I can’t help but love you. It will never stop, no matter how long we are apart, no matter what events transpire in the months and years ahead. One quiet word from you on the telephone 3 months from now, or a year from now, or 5 years from now, and I will be awake again, my whole being charged and electric with the love of you. And in return my voice will say to you, as it always yearns to say, “I love you”.
It may not seem like it, but I am tying to come to terms with you marrying someone else. It is happening very painfully and very slowly, but it is happening. There seems to me very great dangers to you in this marriage, and I have expressed to you before what I think those danger are. But I do not know the future. In any event, you should know, as I think you must, that if your marriage turns out to be prison, that I am here to assist you to escape from that prison.
I have arranged to go back to Canada on Monday, tomorrow. I do not plan to be back to London again; you can relax these next few months, at least you will not need to worry about the possibility of me popping up to startle you. So you can concentrate on your studies. However, if by summer you are still here, then I might very well come back. Why? Because to see you yesterday and to look into your eyes and briefly kiss your cheek and touch your arm was a wonder and a delight, worth all the emotional storm and financial expense involved in coming here. You are the central reason for my existence, and if you are to be here six month from now then I should want to come and see you again, if only to kiss your other cheek and pass a glad hour or two in your company.
The credit card is valid for several more years. Please keep it.
I know that you love me. You do love me. I do not know what will become of that love in the months and years ahead. I pray, against all odds, that it will lead you back to me some day. You said yesterday on our walk that you do not believe in fairy tales, but only in the realities of the inevitability of your marriage, and family obligations, and so on. But I do believe in fairy tales, or, rather, in the central place that love has in them. I really do. If you would place credit in anything I have ever told, let it be this: I believe in the reality and enormity of the love that exists between us, however unlikely and however inconvenient it was and continues to be. If I could trade my life for an hour of our love let loose from all restraints of age and culture and family, then I would do that, and be glad.
Please keep this message in your in-box in this email account. Please read it over each year on August 27th.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
