what she wrote

within the white pages of a well-loved notebook she had chronicled their love story. as a preface to her One True Love she had penned, "read this story to me... and i'll always come back." in her twilight years, living in a stately plantation home for the aged while fighting dementia, her sweetheart, best friend, husband, and lover stayed by her side, reading the story to her every day, patiently willing her to remember, even if just for 5 minutes, who she was, who she had loved, from where she had come. he had left the home he had built for the two of them to cater to her needs and devoted the rest of his life to be by her side. when his children begged him to "come home, we miss you", he said, "my home is where your mother is."

at the end of the movie, hands grasped tightly, neither S or i could breathe from the emotions swelling through our eyes. i told him that the love of noah for allie reminded me of his mommy's love for daddy. both had passed away within a year of each other. daddy went away in june, mommy the following may. S couldn't speak.

it's a love story only nicholas sparks can spin. it's the kind of crap young people sigh over then try to emulate and the kind of bullshit that someone like me hates to love. allie's predicament reminds me of my own predicament before i got married, and exactly how torn i was during the moment of truth: who do i choose? she was not choosing between someone she loved and someone she didn't love. noah put it succinctly: imagine your life 30 years down the road. who do you see? if it's me, then stay. if not, then go. the other man, lon, had something of his own to say: i want you to want to be with me. you have to want to be with me. i can't share you with anyone else. allie chose the man she wanted to be with and that made all the loving difference in her life.

i'd like to think that i chose the man i wanted to be with, who excited me, who made me want to always be a better me. this is the man i cannot bear to live without, whose presence (and consequently, absence) spells the difference between life and death. all i had to do in the crucial month i made my choice (6 months before i got married) was to close my eyes and contemplate what life would be like without S and such a fear gripped me that my reverie was broken. to this day, the sound of his key turning in the lock as he comes home has me happily anticipating the sight of his round face coming through the door while this inexplicable feeling of peace and security descends over myself and mikka.

it was father's day yesterday. on the eve i held mikka's warm body close to mine, singing, "beautiful, beautiful, papa is beautiful and papa makes beautiful things of my life... carefully, touching me, causing my eyes to see... and papa makes beautiful things of my life." mikka was pliant in my arms, letting my soft voice caress the side of his head crowned with his fine black hair. then i told him how papa is the most beautiful man in the world for both of us and that he and i are the happy, secure people we are because of papa's love. then mikka planted his hands on my chest, scrutinising my face. "mama, papa went to get food for us, right?" somehow, in his little baby heart, he knew that papa was out doing something 'beautiful' for us because just before i sang to him, i was telling mikka how hungry i was and that papa was coming home with food. and somehow, he connected that act with the song i had just sung to him.

i've run out of words.