Dear Candace,

Photo by Arisa Chattasa on Unsplash

Ok. Well. That was a thing.

Prior to surgery, I imagined you and I playing tennis or croquet - some kind of turn of the century, Downton Abbey, British yard game.

This is no fucking yard game.

In fact, thinking about it as a game at all implies a modicum of fun.

You may be having fun, but I assure you, I am not.

This is a fight. A heavy weight “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble” kind of fight. Funny, that that’s what that weirdly never aging guy says, “let’s get ready to rumble…”

A rumble is a dance between sharks and jets not a battle with combat weapons.

You came with combat weapons.

And, clearly, you’ve done this before. You had a battle plan. You waited patiently. You knew I’d break.

You probably thought it would be the moment I saw what was under the bandages. I admit, that was bad. And a moment that I would have preferred to have been drunk for. But that wasn't it.

It wasn’t even when my nerve endings woke up and I could literally feel the draining tubes sucking out what remained of my chest.

No. It was the snow.

It was watching the snow fall yesterday that broke me.

So, Candace, if you don’t mind, I’m going to call a truce for a day or two and watch the snow fall.

I assure you that I will be the one screaming, “Adrian!” at the end of this fight. But I’m going to need a minute.

J.