all we'll have left is us

Jay: How far we all come, Mary. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can't even remember where you started or what you had in mind or where you thought you were goin'. All you know is you were headin' some place. One way you do remember. You have a boy or a girl of your own, and now and then you sing to them or hold them, and you know how they feel, and it's almost the same as if you were your old self again. Just think, Mary, my paw used to sing to me. And before my time, even before I was dreamed of in this world, his daddy or his mother used to sing to him, and away back on through the mountains, back past Great-Grandmaw, away on back through the years, right on back to Adam, only nobody ever sang to Adam.

Mary: God did.

Jay: Maybe God did.

Mary: We're supposed to come away from ourselves, Jay. That's the whole point. We're supposed to come away to--

Jay: I know. To God.

Mary: I don't see how you can feel the way you do and not believe in Him.

Jay: We come from people, Mary, and in time they fall away from us, like Great-Granmaw. We give birth to others, and in time they grow away from us, like Ivan will. When we’re about eighty years old, you’n me, all we’ll have left is us. And that’s what I believe in. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s where we’re heading – to each other. And the sad thing all our lives is the distance between us. But maybe if we keep goin' in the direction we think is right, maybe we can't ever get all the way there, but at least we can make the distance less'n it was.

from Electric Company Theatre's production of Tad Mosel's All the Way Home