...does it hurt?
Can a person live without love? Shared affection? Do you really *live* if you have no one to hold, to smile at, to nuzzle soft kisses on the neck? Surely you can exist, you can be self-aware, but is it really life? To see a beautiful sunset, perfection in colors, a soft spring breeze passing a caress from nature lovingly upon your cheek, yet to have no one to relate that perfection to.
40 years, most of it socially incomprehensible, yet I have seen a sunset, smelled a sweet spring breeze. How long can we endure on memories?