The first few words of every story are always the hardest to write. It's almost as if pulling them out, putting them on paper, commits you to seeing it all through. As if once you start, you are required to finish. And how do you finish when some things never end? This is the story of love with no end...though it took me a while to get there.
If I tell you right up front, right in the beginning that I lost him, it will be easier for you to bear. You will know it's coming, and it will hurt. It will still make your chest ache and your stomach flip with dread. But you'll know, and you'll be able to prepare. And that's my gift to you. I wasn't given that same courtesy. I wasn't prepared.
And after he was gone? It got worse, not better. The days grew longer, not easier. The regret was just as intense, the sorrow just as cutting, the endless stretch of days before me, days spent without him, just as hard. In truth—since I've decided that's all I have—I would gladly submit myself to anything else. Anything but that. But that is what was given to me. And I wasn't prepared.
I can't tell you how it felt. How it still feels. I can't. Words feel cheap and ring hollow and turn everything I say, everything I feel, into a tawdry romance novel full of flowery phrases designed to illicit sympathetic tears and an immediate response. A response that has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with easy emotion that you can set aside when you close the cover. Emotion that has you wiping your eyes and chirping a happy hiccup, appreciating the fact that it was all just a story. And best of all, not your story. But this isn't like that.
Because it is my story. And I wasn't prepared.
YOU ARE READING
The Law of Moses
RomanceSomeone found him in a laundry basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few hours old and close to death. They called him Baby Moses when they shared his story on the ten o'clock news - the little baby left in a basket at a dingy Laundromat...
