Me: You know how I have these recurring dreams about you, Ants?
Anthony: Of course you dream about me, Jules; I was amazing!
Me: Nothing dead about your ego is there.
Anthony: I am so fit now, Jules, my washboards are back.
Me: Yeah well, can we just get back to the dream conversation and save your vanity for another time?
Anthony: Okay, go on.
Me: So there are two recurring dreams. The first is the one where I take you to a party and forget your Parkinsons pills and, just as I am panicking about this, you leap out of your wheelchair and start dancing. I love this dream and I like to think this is your new now.
Anthony: It is.
Me: The second dream is more complicated and is about my long-ago unrequited love for you when our 23 year age difference precluded us from embarking on a romantic relationship.
Anthony: Jules, we have already talked about this and I have already admitted I was smitten too but I was over 40 and you were a teenager. It was unthinkable.
Me: Yes, yes, I realise all of that and thanks for your gentlemanly respect back then but I knew, without any shadow of doubt, that you would be my husband one day. But, because you didn’t know back then, I had to suffer years of unrequited love and it was terrible and embarrassing. That is what the second recurring dream is about.
Anthony: Enthralling, Jules
Me: Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Ants. Okay so I had a version of the second dream last night; I was in my 20s, in a rented flat in Perth, and I hadn’t seen you for exactly six months and I was finally feeling over you, so I decided to ring you up. As I was dialling your number on an old-fashioned phone, I gradually emerged from the dream, woke up and told myself to hang up before you answered – to play it cool.
Anthony: Sorry, Jules.
Me: So you should be, Ants – you wrecked my heart back then.
Anthony: Jules! We had over two decades of joy and produced the Ming.
Me: Yes, definitely your clone. Ants, I love you dead just as much as I loved you alive if that make sense. It sounds terrible to say that but what I mean is that I love you in the now even though you are dead.
Anthony: For so many years I couldn’t say it to you, Jules, and then I couldn’t stop saying it: I love you.
jmgoyder 
Oh Julie, how I love love LOVE these conversations……..
Simply Beautiful!