lamplight reading

There sometimes occurs a certain striking moment, such as while Mom Joanna Santangelo and I were reading next to each other on her bed in the lamplight (me "The Science of Kissing," she, "Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage"), each in our own worlds, enjoying an undefinable comfort of shared presence- a perfect experience of Rilke's description of love as "protecting and bordering each other's solitude." And the realization is that: this is it; no one is ever REALLY going to know about our existence except us. Dear fellow human alive at the same time as me: we cannot carve our story into anything except our own recognition of being alive. The details of all that means for us is lost, and when we die... when we die, Friend, I should like very much to look into each other's eyes and remember what it was to exist together; you and I, Friend, once we are gone, will never be alive to anyone in the same way. I'm glad it was you.