This is my guy. Along with sharing life with him on a daily basis, I keep this photo in a frame on my desk, because it captures everything that I love about him. Can’t you just see it? Yep. Me too.
Over the years, more times than I can count, one of the things I’ve looked to him for is reassurance that no matter what is going on at the time, things will somehow, some way, be ok. It looks like this:
Me: I need you to say it to me.
Him: Mol, it’s going to be ok.
And somehow, some way, it always is. That doesn’t mean it is always like I want, wish, hope, pray that it will be. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s better than I ever could have imagined. And sometimes, it’s worse. But no matter what, it ends up being ok. As in somehow, all is well. Or well-ish. Or well enough. I can’t tell you how much I’ve come to count on those words when I can’t see my way clear of things.
This past Sunday we were in the midst of our crazy-quirky-wonderful church service via Zoom. Sitting side-by-side on stools at my desk, the sunlight streaming in the window, we were in the midst of a quiet moment in the service when I happened to glance at his photo sitting in a picture frame to my left. He was sitting on my right for real, and on my left he was looking back at me from that photo. Suddenly, for a moment, time stopped. Or rather, it traveled, taking me along with it. And in that momentary future time, he was gone. He’d moved on to wherever we move to when that time comes, and what remained was that photo. The one that captures everything that I love about him.
The moment passed, and I found myself back in Zoom church, him on my right, the photo on my left, and it was ok. It was more than ok. It was simply the best because it was our life. It was the good, the bad, and the sometimes ugly accumulation of all we’ve lived and weathered and celebrated together, and that had brought us to that moment.
If and when that happens, if and when he steps across the great-but-closer-than-we-can-fathom divide before I do, it will be that photo that will remind me of what I need to hear, when I need to hear it.
Me: I need you to say it to me.
Him: Mol, it’s going to be ok.
And it will be. I’m counting on it.