A thousand little things

I had just sat down for a nightly tea when a text popped up from a friend in California.

“When did you know?” I knew what she meant. I let the warmth of my peppermint tea comfort me as I put my phone down to think. This was not a simple answer. How did I know? I thought. The candle flickered as the thunder cracked above. I missed these storms. We didn’t often get them like they do in Texas. The rain began hitting the roof like thousands of small pebbles. Thousands. My mind wandered to the answer as I picked up my phone.

“It wasn’t just one thing, it was thousands of little things. But I remember the day when I felt it in my heart. The day he shared with me he was terminally ill. That day I knew. The courage it took for him to share with me knowing he could lose me, fearing this most of all. He lightened it with his ol’ saying, let the chips fall where they may, but he already knew what I meant to him and what he meant to me. At that point, we had been falling each day slightly harder than the last.”

She texted back, “But it’s been so hard on you and I also see how happy he makes you. Is it okay if I ask you, what all the other things were?” My friend had been wrestling with her own situation, so I knew why she was asking. I had nothing to hide at this point. Maybe my story would give others a chance to reflect on their own love and life.

“Totally cool to ask. I know it isn’t a light question for me. All those thousands of reasons? They came in emojis, hundreds of them. They came with his persistence. His unwavering need to connect, morning day and night. The way he would give me five minute warnings with him trying to leave work, run to the car and call every day. 

They came in with every drive safe. With every ache in my chest and stomach being so far away. He told me once that it physically hurt him not to talk to me, to hear my voice and to this day my voice still makes him smile he says. The way we speak through the songs we send each other. Even down to an argument we got into, when he sent a song after he left about never arguing like that again. The way he trusts me completely. The way he was so excited for me to meet his parents one day, and show everyone around us what happiness looks like.

Then came the moments in person: the way we look at each other, the way we can stare for ages, the long hugs where both of us surrender in safety and trust. With everything we’ve been through, we know we have us. The slow kisses. The way I lay my hand on his chest and have since I found out he had an illness. I would virtually put my hand on his chest every night as we say goodnight. The way I fell asleep in his arms. The way his heart beats against my ear. The way he kisses my forehead and shoulder. The way he lingered as he looked over at me on the couch and then touched my hair. The way we laugh with each other in bed and banter continuously. The way he looks for me when I’ve wandered off. The way every time we’re together, we feel the intensity, and it scares the shit out of us. 

The way we both have been afraid of losing each other since we first met. And then I got cancer and he was so scared. I could hear it in his voice message the day of my surgery, the relief, the shaky voice, the love, the desire to have been there with me. The way two imperfect people found a missing piece in each other and keep finding their way back. 

No matter how hard it is for him to process his own grief and mortality, he always has space for me emotionally. He carried what I went through and made me laugh almost daily. Our language, whether it was patterns through emojis, our humming noises that only we knew what it meant and the eyes spoke everything between us. A thousand little things.”

“Wow,” she texted back.

“Too much?” I laughed. “I didn’t even go into how much we sync up with everyday stuff and our routines. We just mesh.” 

“No, I just haven’t felt that way about anyone and you shared so much with me.” I smiled. I knew what Bowie and I had was rare and I only touched the surface. 

“I truly hope you do one day. Fair warning though, it ain’t easy, girl. Life is messy, love is complex and grief and illness make it that much harder. So, where it looks like a fairy tale, it is in one hand and in the other, it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever endured.” I took another sip of tea feeling myself get choked up.

“I know. From the outside we all look in and think, it’s simple, but I know there are so many things you both have had to go through together. I guess, I’m just waiting to see how you guys see this through.”

“Ha! With humor, I hope, because it may be the death of me yet.”

“He’d be an idiot Rory. Cmon.”

“That would apply to us both. I think the fact that life has given us illnesses and every challenge that could hit us and yet we are still standing says a lot. I suppose we’ve held onto the same life saver for so long. That’s why I’m taking this leap.”

“You are and we’re all watching to see what happens.”

“Seriously? No pressure girl. Haha.”

“No, really, we have to see what happens next.”

“Y’all got lives, no need watchin’ this one lol.”

“You give us hope,” she texted. My heart sank slightly. I gripped my chest. I’d  been having pains lately, and I knew all of this was beginning to pull me apart. I dared not tell Bowie. I’d learned to give him space to breathe since I returned home.

“Hope,” I whispered. 

Not even I knew what hope looked like anymore. “Life has become one plot twist after another. I’m simply holding on.”

“I know life hasn’t been easy. I’m sorry Rory,” she wrote.

“Bowie had the courage those years back to tell me two things he knew would most likely push most women away. But he took the chance. And now I am taking the chance because I changed everything for us.”

“Everything,” I found myself repeating.