October Second

I hadn't even crossed the room to sit at your desk when you said it. In an instant, every carefully thought out plea I'd planned to deliver as to why you should give me the job flew from my head. I stopped in my tracks, and my heart was the only sound I could hear as I tried to think of what more should be said.

You were everything I wanted to be; you had achieved all that I wanted in life. And as the months passed by, you were the teacher. From you, I learned how to write the words that are meant to be read and how to mean the words that are written to be felt. You helped my words to rise larger than the black-clad twenty-three year old who wrote them. You showed me how to be wise. You taught me to be credible.

Somewhere along the way, we spoke not of writing but of life itself and were surprised to find a common thread between us. We laughed together at our silly routines and the strange habits we both had. The things that we did and that no one else would ever do in a lifetime, let alone admit to. You were no longer simply the teacher, but also a friend and one that I cherished more than all others. My eyes searched for you when I walked in a room, my heart skipped a beat to find you there. I saw you in my dreams, in brightness beside me. A voice said, "Be still, I will lift you up," and it was speaking to us not as two but as one.

I watched you fall apart. I watched you lose everything. I tried to be strong, to remind you that it was I who knew the road of pain all too well. The world twisted around us, and that which was not true fell to the ground around us. And even in your darkest hour, you stood quietly and waited... until the time was right to hold my hand. And I knew then that you were the strong one. You looked at me and saw something beautiful. Something worth hanging onto after the world had let go. I looked at you and saw everything I wanted to be.

I watched you repeat the vows that made you mine in the eyes of the world. I heard your voice utter a scripture that you and I had shared with each other long before that day. I felt you slip a ring on my finger and kiss me for the first time as my husband. You were no longer simply a friend, but the other half of me.

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