It Is

It is such a bizarre experience this missing you, this grief over what was and what will no longer be. How can it no longer be if it never was? We fulfilled our promises to each other much earlier than either one of us expected, the 

"I, Ann, take you, James, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part."

So now, I feel like we did that first misty day in Chamonix. Do you remember? It was our first run up above the clouds, bathed in sunlight, following the run when suddenly we were dropped into a bowl with many unknown others, swathed in a dense, see only a few feet in front of each other fog. At the time it felt like we would not get out. It felt perilous. It felt like perhaps the entire vacation would be like that. All those gathered were like lemmings on the cliff face. But then you did what needed to be done. You climbed back up into the sunshine and found another route.

That's where I am now. Our life together, as it was, is over. I need to find my way up, up to the sunshine, to the new path. I think often of those conversations we had towards the end of your life here. You didn't want me to be sad but we both knew I would be. You wanted me to be able to fully embrace the life I would have without you at my side. You wanted me to continue living in the joy we had found together. You were at peace with your death. Was it the long journey with cancer that had given you that acceptance, or was it just how you had lived your life—always in the moment?

I appreciate how even then you were leaving me a trail to search for. I'm reaching for it, taking your hand. I'm trying to climb out of the clouds and into the sunshine again, to find a new path, the one I didn't know has been laid out for me since the first day you kissed me. It is what always was meant to be. It is.