I remember the moment I dreamed of you; certain you’d be out there somewhere.
I remember how the knowing never left for a moment, doubt never entered. I knew you were there, but I didn’t know where or how or when.
I remember a song arrived for me to sing. A song from the Music Man. Marion the Librarian sang Good Night My Someone.
Every day, I sang that song. 🎶 I wish I may and I wish I might…sweet dreams to carry you close to me…so good night my someone good night. 🎶
The song held her belief and mine that someone was out there and the wistful wishing he would arrive.
And then one morning, you did.
You were on my computer.
Don’t delete me you wrote. I remember your picture and you looked like a stuffy accountant. If looks had been my sole reason for connection, I would have moved on. But your words touched deep. You wrote of the love you’d lost because your wife died. You wrote you were still young and wanted to know the touch of another and love again. You shared about your friends. You shared how you wanted to share your love for life and people with someone.
And I knew.
And this knowing has never left. Doubt has never entered.
That was 21 years ago.
And I remember how, in the beginning, I felt as though I’d always known you. Felt that we had not just met but were reconnecting in a conversation started long ago in a place I couldn’t remember.
The first time I saw you in person, your back was to me as you spoke to two gray-haired women. Probably younger than we are now. Boy, how time changes our perspective. You sensed I was near and turned around. And we recognized each other again. You didn’t look at all like the stuffy account in that first picture
I remember the first time you asked if you could touch my leg and I wondered why you would ask for permission, because somewhere I knew you’d touched me before. I never doubted.
Being together was effortless. Well, except a couple months later when I think the strong memory of your lost wife and your love for her got in our way for a while.
Being with a man who loves a dead woman was not easy. She was now the perfect saint and love, while I remained a mere mortal.
I don’t remember when I no longer felt that long knowing of you. But after being together a while, I guess our current personalities took over, and I had to learn you anew. I had to learn us again.
But the memory of how I once knew we’d always been together kept me going even in the strangest moments when I wondered.
I never wondered about us for long, but maybe wondering about relationships is a natural progression of lives lived together.
We somehow fit, although we couldn’t be more different. You’re an extravert. I’m an introvert. You never judge. Sometimes I should wear a black robe. But through you, I judge less because I could hear that aspect of myself and decided it’s not my favorite part, so I no longer feed or nurture it.
Well, except when it comes to me and the things I see in my face.
Hard not to judge when I witness time’s handiwork.
But you’ve taught me to find the best, so when I scrunch and grimace at my morning face, instead of staying there, I say, That girl needs a smile. So, I smile at the lady in the mirror and she feels oh so much better. She no longer cares about lines and every other sign of aging. She’s just happy to have a face.
We’ve learned so much together, most coming in the last few years when your health led to a few crises that sent you to the hospital. You came too close to death, like Icarus, the mythological creature who flew too close to the sun.
And your close calls only reaffirmed what I knew before we met: that I love you in a way so different from what I used to believe about love. You hold my heart, and while I don’t want to lose you, I don’t spend days being afraid. I spend days being aware. Days of gratitude. Every morning, I wake with gratitude that we’re alive, and I end each night with thank you on my lips, first for you, then for our girl Shelby, then for all the friends who’ve carried me through so much of my life.
I don’t remember the moment I knew I loved you. How could I? I’ve loved you since before this life began and I guess I always will. I wish I knew that if you go first you will remain with me, and I’ll know. Or will I have to count on memories to carry me through lonely days and nights?
Big questions, unanswerable right now. I’m in no hurry to find out. I’m not ready to know. I doubt I ever would be.
I only wish I’d met this version of you earlier so I could have loved you longer and have more memories of us through the decades of this life.
Love was the one thing I always wanted in this life. Thanks to you, I found it and learned its true meaning.
When I think of love, I will always remember you.
I’m her husband and I approve this message ❤️❤️❤️
you're killing me - you keep writing posts that have me in heart tears, in a good way - it makes me laugh that you thought Bob looked like a stuffy accountant