My Oxford Year

by Julia Whelan

I’d like to think it’s possible to remain so devoted to someone’s memory that fifty-nine years later, when all the noise of life is muted, the last gasp passing over your lips is that person’s name.”

I told them I got us tickets to the ball, they had a collective psychotic break. Tom fell to the floor in a giraffe-like sprawl, Charlie stood and slowly ascended to the tabletop, arms outstretched, singing “Jerusalem,” and Maggie just started quietly weeping.

Maybe, once you come to realize that there are no answers, you learn to live with the questions.

Because he knows that he can’t go and he won’t be responsible for holding me back. Because he loves me more than he wants to spend what remains of our time with me. What do you do with that kind of love?

It turns out, the act of making a choice, of choosing a path, doesn’t mean the other path disappears. It just means that it will forever run parallel to the one you’re on. It means you have to live with knowing what you gave up.