𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧 ♦ 𝐑𝐃𝐑

🇨​🇭​🇦​🇵​🇹​🇪​🇷​ 50

Life... It's so odd sometimes. I don't think I would've ever pictured it to be like this when I was seventeen and I was walking to my last day of school with Nathan, we became so much closer as the years went on. I like to think that everything was apart of a grander purpose for us, for me. Selina, we could talk for hours about the past, all these years of our lives and everything in between.

Life;
what is it?

I see it every day when I'm with my children. I watch as my youngest son grows everyday and myself and his mother smile and laugh as he tries to learn to walk, to talk, to be right up there with his older siblings. When he did walk and begin to talk, it was like the entire world got bigger for him. I cried sending him to his first day of school. I'll cry again when he ends up going to college. I see it when my daughter mimics almost everything her mother does, asks if she can help with dinner, wants to learn how to do the bun half as good as her mother can. She tries to help clean. Her green eyes were just as amazing as her mother's and I knew one day, I'd have to sit on the porch with a shotgun when any man wanted to come and take her on dates. The way Selina would light up anytime her and her daughter got to have that mother-daughter bonding time. Even as Sadie ages, I know if she's half the woman her mother is, that she'll be just fine in the future and for the many years ahead of her. It was absolutely everything to me. She would be a photographer just like Selina, capturing nearly every moment in time. The times she knew she could. I see it when Andrew lights up when telling us about the current book his obsessed with. How he hopes one day to be an author, but maybe not that, he might want to be a businessman, or even an actor. Whatever floats his boat, he's the most reserved kid I ever did meet but boy, did he know how to educate you when you needed it most. Even if he is like that, acting school made him come out of his shell. He'll be a big star one day; I know that
much about my boy. But most of all, I see it when Arthur shoots a gun and looks at me with such pride. I watch him completely change into someone who I know one day will protect all of us just as I intend on protecting this family from anything and everything that comes our way. When he left for college in a different state from these, he gave us a tight hug, wanting to study journalism and perhaps become an author of his own. Wanting to reflect on the past that his parents had lived. He has my hat now, this time accepting it fully. Rather than forcefully.

Selina and I always think back to the good ol' days when we made the promise of having four kids, of being married and having a life like this. I swore we weren't ever gonna get our happy ending, that was the reality we always did feel we would live, but it was true. When it was all said and done, we knew this was the life we should be living. This honest one. The one in which we looked at one another every day and could still smile, despite the fact that we had aged more and more as the days passed. I would still look back on my time with the gang, Arthur, Dutch, John, and everyone else with such pride. For it made me the man I am today. It taught me to be patient, to never take the shit of anyone, to be strong and fearless, and to never second guess myself. From this point on, back in the day, even now, I never did.
Nathan and I took trips fishing and hunting still, he never chose to remarry, for he felt like no one could ever tie him down and he never intended to be tied down either. He was a free man, his children, well, he still saw very few of them as they were growing up. His daughter and Andrew, they actually are currently dating and he's thinking of popping the question. Which would truly make Nathan and our family united forever so long as things still went right between the two. He was thrilled to hear about it, but he also didn't know if his ex-wife would ever not treat him like a piece of trash either. Though, my brother, he'd never let anything get to him anymore.

We shared nice dinners together, nights by the firepit, laughs and tears when reflecting on the past everything of the sort. My life... Well, all I can really say is that it has changed for the better. I loved every moment, every second, and I knew I would for the rest of my damn days on this earth. Life--- It's unpredictable. But we all only get one, so we needed to look at the negatives as lessons, and the positives as gifts, for you should never let anything tear you down. No matter what it was.

"The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy - it's all that matters."

- Audrey Hepburn

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