The Blood & The Bones

You are the love of my life. My reason. My purpose. My will to keep going.

I was so lost before you. Searching for something to fill the perforations in my hardened heart.

And then I saw your face. And I knew.

I knew why I had to struggle. I knew why I had gone without. I knew why my hands had been full so many times of the pieces of me wondering how they would go back together.

It was so that when God gave me you, I could understand the places I never want you to have to go. Things I never want you to feel. Learning the lessons of a hard and often lonely life, discarded even by the ones who are supposed to love me the most. I had to feel the absence of that, the longing, so that I could make sure I understood how to protect you from this and to know that I must hold your hand through the things that I cannot keep you from.

None of this has been easy. Starting over. Doing most of it alone. Not being able to give you the things I want to. Not always knowing how to do the things I must because I was never shown.

I know we don’t have it all. I doubt we ever will.

But love, love we have in abundance and there will never be a lack of it. It is overflowing and never ending. And because of this we are the richest.

And I know that I must raise you to be a good and honorable man. That you must know our world can be ugly but that through kindness and perseverance we can create change. That you must find a way to forgive those who hurt us you for your own peace even if that means they are no longer apart of the life you know. That you must go forward in this life understanding you are capable of great things and that I will always be here to remind you of that. That your armor must be strong but so must your will to love.

LL