Chapter Twenty-One
Then — After
I used to write to Ward all the time, in the beginning. It was my grieving process and I realize that in retrospect.
At the time, it was the only tether I had to maintaining my sanity.
Back then, I sent every e-mail I wrote. No stuffing them, ignored, into a drafts folder. After a couple of years, I didn’t send every one, but I still wrote a couple of times a year.
Then I met Daniel. While that didn’t eradicate my painful past, it muted the sharp, aching loss to a level I could finally deal with and begin to slowly deconstruct.
It didn’t completely remove the pain and loss from my soul, but with Daniel’s love and strength, my stunted heart finally began to thrive once more.
I had a lover, a partner, a friend, a fellow spiritual traveler walking a similar path as me.
Could life be any more perfect than that?
I didn’t think so.
The day of our wedding, we keep it small, as Daniel requested. It happens in my parents’ backyard, with my brother and sister-in-law and their kids in attendance, and the minister from my parents’ church.
It is perfection.
We opted for mostly traditional wedding vows, because I knew I’d be too emotional to attempt anything else.
“I promise to love, honor, cherish, protect, and care for you, for as long as we both shall live.” I choke up toward the end. I pray Daniel doesn’t die before me. Losing him is a pain I know I’d never survive.
“The ring,” the minister says.
I take the wedding band from my brother, who’s acting as my best man. I take Daniel’s hands and his face blurs as more tears fill my eyes.
“Repeat after me,” the minister says. “With this ring, I thee wed.”
I choke up again. “With this ring, I thee wed.”
“It is a symbol of my love, undying, unending…”
Twenty minutes later, we’re married, and I can’t stop rubbing my finger over the gold band on my finger.
It’s a miracle.
Later, Daniel laughs when I scoop him into my arms to carry him through our front door. We spent the night in a hotel last night after we finished moving in. We don’t have a lot of furniture, and Dad and my brother and his brother-in-law helped us.
Furniture shopping is on our list, but we wanted to be moved in first, so we could get a feel for living there and see what we wanted.
There’s no rush. We have a bed, a table and chairs, and a comfy sofa large enough for us to both stretch out on.
We have the rest of our lives to fill the rooms with things and build memories.
We have each other.
We have love and we’ve both achieved healing.
Mostly.
There are still the occasional shadows that fill my soul. I think about the e-mail I wrote last night and know there might always be darkened sections of my heart that I’ll ever be able to cast into the full sunlight of Daniel’s unflinching love.
I think I’m finally learning how to be okay with that, though.
