Awake. Again.

It is no surprise to me that I fell in love with Adam when we were writing letters to each other.  I fall in love with him all over again whenever I read something he's written.  For my last story in this month of 31 stories, I am posting something Adam wrote and posted on his own blog on March 9, 2011.  It's probably my favorite thing he's ever written.  It encapsulates everything wonderful about Adam.  Adam is a man with a creative soul.  He is a terrific father who learned from the best, his own terrific father.  He is a man with a deep strength--and not just the piano moving variety, though he has that too.  Adam is my anchor in the world.

And his writing makes my heart sing.

I arrived home from work with just enough daylight and just enough Spring to mow the lawn.  Braeden and I reveled in the straight lines and greening blades.  "It's the awakening," he said.

—

I sat in the temple and smiled at the sight of Emma and Braeden sitting side by side, quiet and content.  Outside the temple, we stared up at the stained glass, the angel, the glowing walls.  I asked Emma how she felt.  "Light and airy," she replied.

—

Driving home from the airport, I listened to my mother describe her trip to Disneyland with Megan, Talia and Jackson.  "If your dad were still alive..." she began to say.  For the first time, I smiled and laughed instead of fighting back tears.

—

Awake.

Light.

Laugh.

Alive.

Again.

—

Everyone is asleep.  I sit down to write.  I don't cry.  I don't turn away.  It's a change.  I can write again, at last.  But it's not the same as Before.  Everything seems different now that I live in After.

Eighteen months since he left.  My father.  There was a last goodbye.  A last hug and kiss.  A last "thank you" from him, though it should have been from me.  I did not know until a few hours later that they would be the last.

I did not know until he was gone that part of what I thought was me, was really him.  I didn't know how much I relied on him.  How much he lifted me.

He wasn't really gone, though, was he?  No.  I didn't have to search for the answer.  There was no crisis.  No need to wonder, to question.  That part of me remained.  The part that is assured.  The part that loves and longs.  The part that knows.  The part that sees me through After and waits for Again.

—

"It's the awakening," he said.

Again.