Izobel arrived two and a half years ago.
At almost 50, to make an Izobel with someone that is just a couple of years younger than you requires some medical intervention.
So that’s what we did.
Izobel.
If you’ve done this too (not necessarily the medical intervention bit – the other bit) you’ll know how dumbfounding it is.
Making an Izobel.
How they become actual little people so quickly.
In 24 months they go from a pink mole-like creature that can’t even move – to an actual person that reasons with you why reading the same Meg and Mog story over and over and over is a good idea.
Or that thinks it’s OK to smile at you and steal the best bits of food from your plate.
How does Izobel know that this is OK for her to pinch the best things from my plate?
How does Izobel know that, in actual fact, it’s OK for her to have everything on my plate?
No matter how hungry I am.
Izobel.
If I last my allotted 1,000 months, Izobel will watch me die when she is 34 years old.
This would be acceptable to me.
It’s probably enough time for her to love me, then hate me, then boomerang back to love me again.
But to spend 34 years with Izzy Willow will be just fine.
I will have experienced the physical agony of seeing her hurt by other people I am sure.
I am not looking forward to that.
And I may still be around to see her create little people of her own.
I am looking forward to that.
Goodbye.
Anyhow, in case I die all of a sudden (a heart attack or a Laurel and Hardy type piano accident) I’ve written Izobel a letter, asking her to do just one thing for me after I die.
I honestly only want her to do one thing.
It’s to live for 100 years.
Anything else she does between now and then is fine by me.
Now that she’s here, all I really just want is for her to stay here.
And think of me, once or twice, in each of the 66 years that she outlives me.
Because wherever I am, I will be thinking about her.
