Steven Payne With and Without

Annotation

Rhona sometimes used to say to me that, meeting me as she did when I was only twenty-five, she had had the best years of my life. Truer word was never spoken. While she (to my life-long shame, remorse and regret) unquestionably had some of the worst of me, I like to think, I hope, that she also had - such as it is - all of the best of me. I was twenty-five when we met and forty-six when she died. That's a hefty chunk of an important period of anybody's life and Rhona had it. For all its lows as well as highs, the downs as well as the ups - what else can you expect for two people together almost all the time for twenty-one years? - what Rhona and I had, what we created, was a life. And she was, whatever anybody else says or thinks, despite my grievous mistakes, the centre of mine. There are no perfect people in this world but sometimes - just sometimes - two people can be perfect for each other.