I make myself sit still to
write, to think, to feel
who you were to me all
those years ago when
I was a lost child with
emotions too large for my
body and no place to store
them until I could understand. 

You gave me a space to be
honest and verbose and lost
in safety. Lost 
in arms always open. 
Lost in love with no
conditions. 

You gave me the country and
tick checks and canoeing
the Finley with the children
everyone thought were the reason,
your children, a year above and
below me, who provided cover
for my true purpose — to be held 
to your bosom, to be mothered.

Hearing you died landed as
an anvil. Despite the memory
you had already released and the
hospice and the impending
truth I knew would come, still,
knowing that for the first time
in my life I was on the earth
without you forged iron grief.

Before I knew you, you were
here. After we moved away, you
were here. And during those sacred
years of blooming in a sanctuary
you built for me, you were 
here, always here. And now 
I’m here without you, and 
I feel a little lost.  Not sure
what to write, what to
think, what to feel.  

Nothing has changed.
You lived your life there,
and I lived my life here. We
stopped being daily parts of 
each other decades past.
 
No, nothing has changed, but
it didn’t need to. Because
you loved me enough in two
years to last a lifetime, and that
changed everything for me,
how I understood love and
the world and my space in it.
Everything changed when
you loved me back to myself.