Every time I meet my husband beneath that tree, I insist we walk home slowly. It’s my way of making each day last a little longer.
It was an ordinary life I wished for, and that is what I have. Each time I swim in the river I am driven forward when I imagine my front door, the windows facing east and north, the dogs on the porch, my husband at his work, recording the beauty of the trees in the woods so that no one will forget them. I still have the portrait he made of you in our garden. It is the only thing I saved from that time.
I pray that one day we meet again so that I can properly thank you, for no one could have asked for a kinder, more devoted friend. I hope you know I was always loyal to you. I am loyal to you still. I do not know, and I may never know, if you are my mother, but, as I could wish for no better woman to have brought me into the world, I will consider you to be so. You are the one who taught me that love was never what we expected it to be and that it was all we needed. For that, and for a thousand other things, I send my gratitude.