Epilogue

It almost feels as if I have been shaken from a dream, as I make my way up into the sanctuary, sitting underneath the branches of your tree. Sometimes it seems as though you are still here, and so many other places watching over me. Each day I find some small reminder of what we shared, from the smell of your familiar cologne, to a song on the radio. You’re in the sky on moon lit nights, and when the wind whispers in the trees. No one is going to replace you in my heart, even as the years pass, the fact that we loved one another will never change.

I have often thought of you during the most joyous and saddest of times. I think of you as I watch our son grow, the world change, and each time I feel the future is uncertain. I think of you when I lie in bed at night, and when I’m afraid. I think of you when I feel like rejoicing, when someone blesses me with a random act of kindness, and each time I accomplish something I once thought I could never do. When times are hard I feel you beside me, and sometimes I can almost hear you laughing, telling me how simple it would be just to push past the fear, to find I can do anything.

I’ve been many places since I’ve last been here to talk to you, its amazing how much your world can open up, when you finally let go of the fear and let it. I’ve discovered as you once did that there is a world out there beyond this god forsaken little town, even if my heart leads me back here and still tells me that its home.

I still write about the places that I dream about that we will never get to see, the children that we might have had, the places we might have gone, and all of the things we might have done. In my stories, you have had many names, and you have been many things, but always, in every one you’ve been as kind and loving as you really were. There is no way to tell how many different guises you may yet still wear in the future. I think that you’d laugh to see all the places and people that you have been.

Our son is growing up so fast, and soon I fear he wont need me there to talk or to watch over him anymore. He’s already pulling away from me as a young man of his age should. I can tell he is falling in love with his best friend, much as his father did. You should see them together, sometimes it still makes my heart break. I hope their ending is happier than the one that destiny gave to us, that they have as many years together as we had few. Any heart full of love at all, would want it to turn out that way. Soon he’ll be grown with children of his own, and I’ll have grown old, wondering where time has gone, it all having slowly slipped away.

I still write to you every night in my journal, tell you about my day, and honestly, a lot has changed. The truth is as you know I have met someone, and part of me still wonders if letting myself care for him is the best thing. He will never be you, but he is so much like you, in so many ways. Loneliness has crept in, and much like our son, I’ve discovered that I do need someone to love me, even if it means that my life has to change.

No one will ever replace you in my heart, or mean the things that you have meant to me. You came into my life and taught me hope at a time when I could see nothing but the darkness surrounding me. I was a near suicidal child, that had never known what kindness and compassion could truly mean. You taught me to trust again, and you learned trust as well by putting your faith in me. I hope that it won’t make you angry, or betray that trust if I follow, what my hear now tells me that I really do need. I came here this morning, not to tell you goodbye, but to ask if it is alright if I let go, enough to find love again, to open my heart enough to let someone else in, and maybe someday, once again be truly happy.

I sat for the longest time, staring out the window of the sanctuary, just as we had on so many days. Its obvious that because of the trails, that more people have found it now, the walls covered with fresh graffiti. The tree still remains the same, grown a little bigger now, completely covering the sanctuary in its thick shade.

Maybe I’m sitting here waiting for a sign, wishing for you to come and speak to me in spirit one last time. There is no sound, except the wind in the trees, until I turn to walk away, then through the window, in the distance, I hear the laughter of children, and see them closing fast in my direction, one suspiciously like you, his shaggy blonde hair flying about madly in the breeze. Close at his side, his best friend, who is now his love, much as we were at their age. I watch for a moment as they pause just inside the wall, locked for a moment in one another’s embrace, reminding me so much of the first time we had stood that way. The wind picks up as he leans down to kiss her, happy tears falling from my eyes, as I remember. I think I know what you were trying to say.