I Thought We Had More Time

For Kilavanh “Bate” (Von) Chanthaboune
November 1, 1971 – September 20, 2026

“You won.”

Those were the words he said to me the last time we saw each other.

“I won? I didn’t know we were in a competition,” I answered. Then I thanked him. “I appreciate that.”

It was the end of June, two months before he would take his last breathe. We were at his niece’s wedding. We had a lifetime of history between us, and at first, I wasn’t entirely sure what he was trying to say. But knowing him, knowing us, I came to hear those words as an acknowledgment. I believe he was making peace with a part of our lives that had once been so tumultuous for both of us.

I told him I forgave him. That I was happy for him. He seemed to have everything he could ever want. He had a nice house, a devoted partner who loved him, an active social life and many friends. We spoke about moving forward, about our family, about the granddaughter who would soon be joining our two grandsons. At time, he didn’t really seem his usual self. He was more pensive. I just assumed it was because his partner wasn’t there. Looking

I thought there would be more conversations like that.

To explain what losing him means to me, I have to go back to the beginning. Before we were parents or grandparents. Before we had anything to forgive.

He was my first love. My very first everything.

He knew the girl I was before so much of my life had happened. He was there when I first discovered what it felt like to fall in love, to want someone close, to share parts of myself I had never shared before. Those beginnings happened with him, and I have carried them through every version of my life since.

We met because his sister couldn’t drive us to school one morning.

His family had moved from Arkansas to New Hampshire. His parents already knew mine. His sister had been giving us rides because the school bus didn’t pick us up and my parents didn’t want us walking. That morning, she sent her brother instead.

He arrived in her little red two-door car. I don’t remember the make for certain anymore, but I remember sitting in the back seat, right behind him.

When we arrived, he tilted his seat forward without getting out, leaving me to squeeze past. I bumped my head on the way out.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, even though it hurt so badly.

That was our beginning. I could not have imagined that the boy behind the wheel would become the father of my children, or that so many years later I would be sitting here trying to write about his death.

He wasn’t attending school when we met. After that, he started going. I have always believed he went because he wanted to see me. He found ways to be the one giving us rides, ways to come around, ways to get my attention.

And he knew how to get attention.

His hair stood about three inches high, in that style so many of us remember. He wore fitted jeans, cool jackets, designer clothes. He knew how to dress and how to carry himself. Whatever else was happening, he knew how to look good.

Then there was that smile. His beautiful lips, those dimples, and the mischievous look that went with them. He could turn heads, and he knew it. Even when he grew older, there were expressions that brought that young man right back to me.

I was shy. At first, I didn’t pay him much attention. But he kept finding reasons to see me, and eventually I began looking forward to seeing him, too.

One day, he suggested we play hooky. Instead of dropping me at school, he took me off to spend time together. There were trips to the beach and phone calls that lasted all night, until the sun came up. We could talk for hours and still find another reason to stay on the line.

That is how I remember falling in love with him: a little at a time, until he had become part of every day.

For much of that school year, my mother didn’t know what was happening. By the time our parents realized, we were already in love.

They did not approve.

I want to remember that he tried to do things the proper way. He brought his mother and father to speak with my parents, to ask for my hand in marriage. He made that effort. He wanted to be with me, and he sought their blessing.

My parents still refused.

Eventually, we eloped.

When I look back, I see how much pressure surrounded us before we had even learned how to build a life together. We were young and wanted each other. We had spent so much energy trying to be together, and then we had to learn how to live together.

Those were very different things.

There were responsibilities now. A home to keep. Work to go to. Eventually, children who needed us. We were still growing up ourselves.

He worked hard. He provided for me and for our family. There were years when I did not have to work because he carried that responsibility. I want that remembered. He took care of us in ways that were real and important, and I am grateful for them.

I remember the familiar rhythm of his weekdays. He would get up and go to work, come home, eat, spend a little time together, and fall asleep. He loved his sleep. By eight o’clock, he could be out for the night.

Then the weekend came, and somehow his energy returned. He wanted to go out and enjoy himself. I was more inclined to stay home, but I wanted his company there. Often, I felt lonely.

At the time, I could not understand why being home together did not seem to be enough. Now I can see the young man who was working, carrying responsibilities, and still wanting the freedom to go out and have fun. I can also see the young woman at home who wanted more time, attention, and reassurance.

Providing mattered. So did presence. We did not know how to find a way of living that felt good to both of us.

I became unhappy and left. He came after me, and I returned. Once, when I left Arkansas and went back to New Hampshire, he followed me, got us an apartment, and we tried again.

That became a pattern over nearly ten years. I would reach a point where I felt I could not stay. He would try to bring me back. There would be another chance, another hope that things could be different.

Looking back, I think we were often responding to different fears. I was afraid of staying unhappy and being hurt again. I think he struggled with the thought of losing me. The more I wanted distance, the harder he sometimes tried to keep me close.

There were breaches of trust, and there were times when his efforts to stop me leaving frightened me. Those parts of our story are private, but they are part of why I eventually reached my limit.

I can see my own insecurities and reactions more clearly now. I can also remember that I had reasons for leaving. Understanding him with more compassion does not require me to turn against the young woman I was.

Eventually, I stopped believing another return would change things. I moved away because I needed the back and forth to end.

Even after our lives separated, he would still find ways to flirt, tease, or try to catch my attention. I often kept myself half-ready to leave a conversation. The history between us had taught me to be guarded, and that guardedness did not disappear simply because time passed.

Sometimes I wonder whether joking was the easiest way he knew to approach me. It was familiar to him, and perhaps easier than saying something serious to someone who might turn away. I cannot know exactly what he meant every time. I only know that he kept reaching, in his way, and that I did not always know how to receive it.

During those early, difficult years, he once told me that when he died, he would come back to haunt me. I remember it now as something said in a time when letting go was hard. I do not believe it represents where we finally arrived.

When I think about our last conversation, I believe there was peace between us. That is what I hold on to.

There was care between us over the years, too, in moments that deserve their own place in this story.

In 2006, after my father died, he welcomed me into his home with open arms. I stayed with him for about three months. I remember driving him to work, working from home myself, reading, sharing meals, watching television, and those familiar naps.

When I was grieving my father, he made room for me. I have never forgotten that.

He knew me through so many versions of myself. The shy girl. The young mother. The woman struggling to leave. The daughter grieving her father. He had seen my best and my worst, and I had seen many sides of him.

Last year, he said, “Where have you been?”

I felt as though he was seeing a softer, fuller version of me than I had allowed him to see in a long time. I cannot say everything he meant, but I remember the feeling of being seen by someone who had known me so young.

After that, there were more messages, more conversations about the grandchildren, more little openings for us to know each other as we were now.

He told me that our grandson had sent him a message saying, “I love you,” and that it had made his day.

That memory is precious to me. He wanted to share that happiness, and I understood why it mattered. These were our grandchildren. We could delight in the same little people, recognize pieces of our children in them, and share a pride that came from the same beginning.

In one of our last text exchanges a week prior to the wedding, he reached out to ask me for a ride from the airport, I called him Von, the nickname I used when we were young.

“Hello, Von.”

He replied, “LOL, wow, haven’t heard that name since high school.”

I’m glad I called him that. For a moment, we were remembering the boy and girl we had been, before all the years between then and now.

And at his niece’s wedding, we had the conversation I keep returning to.

“You won.”

Once, I might have heard only the competition in those words. Now, I hear what I believe was his willingness to stop struggling with something we could no longer change.

Perhaps what I once would have understood as accepting defeat had become acceptance itself. I cannot speak for every feeling he carried. But to me, he seemed to be acknowledging our history and making peace with where we had arrived.

I thanked him. I told him I forgave him. I was glad he was doing well, and I wanted us to get along as grandparents.

That conversation was meaningful because of everything that came before it. We did not need to retell ten years of hurt or explain every choice. We knew the history. In that moment, we were able to speak about going forward.

I had no idea we were saying goodbye.

I was looking forward to sharing this part of life with him. Our children were grown. We had two grandsons, and our granddaughter was on her way. I wanted to see him meet her. I wanted us to spoil her and laugh about what the boys were doing.

He was someone I could tell a story about our grandchildren to and know it would matter to him, too.

We remembered their parents as babies. We had watched our children grow into adults. There was a particular joy we could share because we had been there at the beginning.

I thought there would be more family gatherings. More conversations. More opportunities to be comfortable around each other without all the weight we once carried.

I thought there would be time.

His illness moved so quickly. Even now, I am trying to take in how little time there was between understanding that he was seriously ill and learning that he was gone.

When I looked for old photographs, I could not find so many of the ones I remembered. At first, I found a picture of our son sitting in his lap, and I couldn’t even see his face.

I wanted evidence of those years that I could hold in my hands. Something that said, “There we were.”

But the memories are still here. The red car. The tall hair. His clothes. His smile. The phone calls until sunrise. The routines of a life we once shared.

I did not know his death would affect me this deeply.

I think I am grieving some of those memories for the first time. When our relationship ended, I was busy surviving it and finding a way forward. I did not have much room to stop and mourn what had been beautiful.

Now the good is coming back to me, and I am letting myself feel what it meant.

He was my first love. That place in my life was always his. We had long since built separate lives, but I still cared about him. I still cherished what had been good between us.

I miss knowing he was somewhere in the world. I miss knowing our children could call him. I miss the possibility of sending him a story about the grandchildren and hearing his response.

I am also grieving the gentler relationship I thought we might have in the years ahead.

There are things I wish I could say now. “I understand more.” “I still care.” “I’m glad we found our peace.”

But when I return to that wedding, I remember that I did express care. I did offer forgiveness. I spoke about a future that included him in our family’s happiness. I believe he understood something of what he meant to me.

His death has also made me look at how I am living now.

I have spent so much time looking inward, trying to understand myself, heal, and grow. Some of that required distance. Some of it required quiet. I needed room to become someone I could feel at home with.

But as I began stepping back into life, I put more thought into making new connections than nurturing some of the relationships I already valued.

With him, I asked his partner how he was doing. I asked our children. But I had his number. I could have reached out to him directly.

I wanted to respect their life together and give them peace and privacy. I was thinking about his partner and our children, about their feelings and what they needed. At the time, I did not think I needed comfort myself.

Now I do.

In making room for everyone else’s relationship with him, I did not fully make room for my own. There was a history I still treasured, a person I cared about, and things I might have wanted to say if I had understood how little time remained.

I do not know what another call would have brought. I only know that I wish I had made it.

I am trying to let that wish teach me something without using it to punish myself. I was acting with care. I thought there would be another opportunity.

There are people here now whom I love and value. People I think about without always telling them. Relationships I am grateful for but have sometimes left unattended while I focused on getting through my own days.

I want to be more present in those relationships. To ask how someone is and make time for the answer. To share a small happiness while it is happening. To let someone know they crossed my mind.

Nurturing those connections belongs in my growth, too.

His life was much larger than the part he shared with me, and I want to honor the people who shared the rest of it.

My heart is with his partner of fifteen years. She shared his daily life and carries her own memories, love, and loss. Her place in his life matters. I am grateful he had companionship in those years, a home and someone with whom to share his days.

My heart is with our children. He was their father, and there is no way for me to take away the pain of losing him. I hope the stories we tell will help them remember him and discover pieces of his life they never knew.

My heart is with our grandchildren, his friends, and his family, who have endured so much loss. Of six siblings, three are now gone. I think of the three who remain and all the memories they carry.

Each person knew him differently. Someone remembers a day at work. Someone remembers a joke. Someone remembers a kindness or a moment when his smile changed the mood in a room. I hope those stories continue to be shared.

Our granddaughter will know his name. She will see his face in photographs. We will tell her about him. I wish so deeply that she could have known him for herself.

I want to remember the whole person I knew: the stylish young man who found reasons to drive me to school, the man who worked hard to provide, the person who welcomed me when my father died, the grandfather whose day was made by an “I love you.”

And I want to remember the man who sat with the history between us and, in the words he could find, offered what I understood as peace.

Writing this is my way of honoring him and giving our story a place to rest. There are things that will always remain between us. There are things I am still coming to understand. But I know that he mattered to me, that the good we shared was real, and that I am grateful we had that last conversation.

Tonight, I will light incense again and a candle and say a prayer for him.

Bate, you were my first love. My very first everything. You knew me when so much of life was still ahead of us.

Thank you for the good we shared. For the ways you provided for our family. For making room for me when I was grieving. For the memories that still make me smile. For our children, and for the grandchildren whose happiness we were able to share.

I wish we had more time. I wish I could tell you another story about the boys. I wish I could watch you meet our granddaughter. I wish we could have enjoyed more of the peace we finally found.

I miss you. I miss what was good between us. I will always be grateful that we were able to speak with kindness at the end.

When I think of the beginning, I see your smile.

When I think of our last conversation, I feel grateful.

May you rest peacefully, Bate. You mattered to me. You always will.