It was time. Eighty-seven years had taught him that if nothing else, life was to be enjoyed. And he had. Eighty-seven years of freedom, of no regrets. He’d been unhappy, he’d been hurt. He’d been angry with the world. But he’d also loved. Traveled. Experienced. He thought about his sons. His daughter. About their mother. The time they’d shared together. He wondered if she regretted that they’d never married. He didn’t think she did; he knew he didn’t. They would’ve only caused each other pain in the end. They'd lived together until the kids were old enough to understand. They never pretended they'd last. When he moved out it was painful, as it always is when you lose a part of yourself. But he couldn't leave. He stayed in as close proximity as he could, to be with his little ones. That was the closest he'd ever been to truly settled. He’d still traveled, but it was different. Before, he’d go to a new country, taking time to explore every back road, public house, and historic landmark it could offer him. After the kids, he couldn’t stay gone for more than two weeks. Soon after he’d pretty much stopped altogether.
He smiled as he thought of the day he realized his life of spurious trips had ended. They day his Jack had married. He thought of his sons standing together as they watched Jack’s love walk toward him in the church outside the French village in which they’d grow up. The utter joy that came from knowing you were about to forever belong to someone else; and that they would belong to you, too. He’d watched Annie and Jack play together, start school together, endure the ever-turbulent teenage years together, grow into the wonderful people they are now.

His oldest son, Will, was expecting his second child. Will’s first child had been too beautiful for reality. A tiny perfect angel with soft wisps of golden hair. She’d gotten it from her grandmother. His thoughts shifted to birthday parties, Christmases, anniversaries, all the family events that they’d shared. He had eight grandchildren now. Jack and Annie had just had their third. Will and Helen, their fourth. But Lilian was more like him. She couldn’t be tied down by marriage. At least her situation was by choice. But she’d had a daughter. As gorgeous as her mother before her. Truth be told, she was his favorite. He knew he wasn’t supposed to have favorites, but he’d never been one to conform. Her sass and ambition reminded him of himself, of the hope he had. And he knew that she could make things happen for herself. That comforted him. His greatest comfort was knowing that his children had found what he’d spent his youth searching for so early in life. That they would be happy and prosperous.
He thought about the time before he’d met their mother. Before Vanessa. Before the Disillusionment. Seven times. That’s how many engagements it had taken him to learn. To learn that marriage was not for him. To learn that maybe he had no other half. To learn that happiness was not finding a good Christian wife and settling down on a nice, big ranch in southern Kentucky, like his family had beaten into him. That was when he left. He left his family, his pain, his rejection. He went to Europe, traveling until he had learned their customs and language. He’d submersed himself in their culture like a dry sponge being tossed into a sink full of water.
It was France that he’d fallen for. The greatest of all the places he’d been to. It was there that he met Vanessa. There that he’d fallen for her. There that they decided not to ever say their vows. She was too much like him. Too attached to her personal freedoms to submit to a husband. They had lived together for fourteen of the best years of his life. There was no build up to the end. No period of uncomfortable tension. No explosive catharsis that forced them apart. It was just over. Like they woke up one morning and somehow knew that it was time. The winds had changed and so he must go. He’d known that the children tried to hide their sadness from him. That was the only thing that killed him. He couldn’t bare the look in Lilian’s eyes as he pulled away in his truck. He was only moving down the street but it might as well have been a light-year. Still, thinking about it now, there wasn’t a thing he would change. Nothing more he would say, nothing else he would do. Eighty-seven years had given him a good life, filled with heart-break, sorrow, anger, love, and joy. In Eighty-seven years he had achieved what some would never fully comprehend: contentment. He signed the DNR as he thought about the good-byes he’d said to his children. The final heartbreak in his daughter’s eyes. It would be nice to be missed.
Now there was only Vanessa. From her he received no pity. Understanding and anger were the primary emotions on her face as he ordered that he not be revived when his heart stopped. He didn’t want life forced back into him once it left. He couldn’t’ stand the idea of being attached to machines as his existence dragged on, supported only by medications and respirators. He’d enjoyed his life immensely. But he was finished. And it was time.