he and i

today it has been 16 months. 16 months of being without him. without his voice. without his touch. without his smile, even the embarrassed one he had when i took all those photographs of him.

what was it about him, about him with me? we were both divorced when we met. it was something we had both thought would never happen to us.

his first wife hated him when she found out "exactly" what he did when he was sent out. she called him "monster." she called him a "killer." it did the damage she hoped it would.

my first husband never loved me. he married me, he said later, because his mother told him it was time. he chose me because i was compliant enough. he said i did what i was told and he had thought i always would. but he never loved me.

two outcasts adrift in a world that could not find anything about them to love. a Dragon and a woman who kept to the shadows because it was safer. a Dragon who was unafraid of the dark found me and kept me snuggled and safe under his wings, against his big body, near his heart which is the only vulnerable part of a Dragon.

he and i are kindred spirits. we are two strings on the lute that Gibran wrote of; quivering with the same music, standing apart, yet so near to each other.

he and i are opposite in all the ways that can attract to people together. my gray moth out of the darkness to his warm flame. i burned with his fire and it was glorious. so warm. so much light. the darkness was kept at bay and i knew love.

he and i are the same in all the ways that hold to people together, united against a world that might try, would try to tear them apart. tested and passed, he and i grew closer with each trial. every gauntlet we walked we did so with arms linked and heads held high. we had love. no force is greater.

he and i share the same dreams. we smiled in amazement at the thoughts of one another, so exactly the same. finishing each other's sentences, laughing. shared silences so companionable. thoughts lost together over what we wished could be for us. contentment found in each other's arms. he and i shared a bond that life could not even slice much less sever.
he and i shared our darkness. he gave me his sorrows and guilt. i gave him love and the absolution that i told him he did not require. he gave me his vulnerability and i gave him love, joyful acceptance, and my awe.

i gave him my scars and my fears. he gave me his tears to wash the nightmares away and love to comfort me. i gave him my self-hatred and he gave me love and the awareness of what he saw in me and how he saw me.

he and i cleansed each other of our previous lives. we both took the other's hands and held them to our chests to feel the beat of our hearts. we looked into each other's eyes and saw the respect, admiration, love, and desire there for each other.

he and i shared our lives, our minds, and our souls. we found who we truly were in each other and joy that we allowed each other to be. once lost, now found. we felt reunited in our first meetings if such a concept can be understood by outsiders. each moment together solidified our bond more and more, welding our love together until "death did us part."

but it only parted us as physical beings. i have learned a lot about life and about others while i grieve. this kind of sorrow does bring with it a gift; a clarity that cannot be ignored. i know what needs to be done. i know what i want to do. the numbness has finally faded from my brain and i find that all the self-evaluation i have done these past 16 months has given me a view of myself. everything that has happened to me since my Dragon died has shown me how i must be.

i must be a dragon in my own right. my mate is dead and i am alone on the mountain. i must be watchful lest some snake oil salesman tries to con me. i must be savage in the protection of my own rights as a grieving dragoness. i will let no one touch me to hurt me. my scales have grown in.

i gave him my heart to take with him so that he is wrapped in my love until we meet again in Heaven. what i have only begun to hope, to try and believe in is that he left his heart behind with me. at the moment when he died, maybe there was an exchange. as the air in the room swirled with the breeze of his wings taking him away from me, we gave each other our hearts.

we may not look the same in Heaven but we will know each other by our hearts; him holding mine, me holding his. and maybe in Heaven we will not exchange them back, but forever keep each other's hearts inside us just as we clasped hands in this life. me touching him. him touching me. always touching. always a couple. a sacred bond sanctified by our vows. "till death do us part?" our love did not die. a body died. his soul lives on and his humility and my prayers assure me he is in Heaven and at peace, albeit waiting for me. i trust in God. my dream is one that i think God would approve of.

"And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:13

i have faith. i hope. and i love.