LOVE SONGS

“Rosie, look at that guy across the room with the beard!”  I said excitedly. 

“What?” She said with complete disinterest.

”Oh, that is the man for me!” 

And as the song goes:

“Some enchanted evening you will see a stranger,

You will see a stranger across a crowded room,

Then run to his arms and make him you own.”

That is just what I did, and for twenty-five years our love song played sweetly.

Like a diamond, the quality of love is tested under pressure; it is refined and caused to shine even brighter.   As I cared for my husband, my lover, my friend, during those ten months, I experienced a love for him unlike I had ever know.  His once six-foot-two , two hundred pound  muscular body now fragile and paralyzed,  could no longer hold me, caress me, protect me and yet as I  bathed him, dressed him , pushed his wheel chair, the love I had for him filled me to overflowing. It was the most beautiful song of all, the song of unconditional, eternal love. A love given by God.

On January 19th 2008 the music paused as the conductor of the song drew his last breath.  In the early morning hours my sweet, romantic husband slipped away for awhile. Though apart our song still plays, as the words of my favorite Josh Groban song says, “A breath away’s not far from where you are.”  Our love song plays on.