My life began the day you walked into it. I didn’t know exactly what, but that day I knew something was different. Honestly, I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t know how to love someone yet, but you patiently taught me how. Sometimes you had to kick down the door of my hard head to get my attention, but you always did. You still do. Before you can learn to do hard things you have to have a mixture of desire and commitment. You have to want to learn and you have to be committed to learning. Learning is not easy, whether learning to walk, ride a bike, a new job, speak a foreign language, or how to love. Learning to speak the language of love is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but from day one you made we want to learn and every day since you’ve kept me committed to learning. Originally this love was all about you and all for you, but part of your beauty is the seed of love you planted in my heart and watered day after day has grown and bloomed and born fruit far beyond just you. You have cultivated a garden of love in my heart and now it fills my whole life.
The tendrils of your love have grown so thoroughly and deeply into my heart that I struggle to think of myself apart from you. In my own mind Brandon and Jade/Honey and Gumbo are a single unit, two sides of the same coin. Maybe this is what two become one is all about. You know I can’t dance — sometimes I step on your toes, knock you down, or just move out of rhythm — but somehow through the decades we’ve choreographed something beautiful. We have our own rhythm, even if it sometimes seems “we’re slow dancing in a burning room.”
You complete me is so cliche, and yet so accurate. Everywhere I’m missing pieces of my heart, you connect naturally with yours. What is a struggle for me comes naturally for you. Your loyalty is unmatched and unquestioned. So many times I’ve asked you to uproot your life and build something new that I believed was important and you always have and we always do. I look back on our past with no regrets, only monuments to what we needed to survive at those times.
No one can make me laugh the way you can and there is no sound in the entire world I crave more than the sound of your laughter. When you laugh I know you are happy and when I know you are happy I am at peace. All I’ve ever wanted to do was make you happy.
I love how big you do everything. You do everything with gusto. Your heart is on the outside of your chest, which means you are able to lead with love toward everyone, but it also means there is nothing to protect your heart but me. I haven’t always done that well, and I’ve let your heart get battered and bruised, but like every other part of our lives together, I’ve learned through the years and now I try to stand in front of you and take any arrows that might pierce your heart so that you can focus on unencumbered love for all.
I love how you drop everything without a thought or hesitation when you believe you are needed or someone is in need. Giving and serving is a reflex for you that hasn’t always been as natural for me, but you’ve helped shape me into someone more willing to act now and figure out the details later.
I love how you are always thinking about other people and I love how you throw yourself completely into anything or anyone you love. I only hope you get back a drop of the love you pour out, because even a drop of the love you give is an ocean.
The only thing I don’t love is how hard you are on yourself and how much you beat yourself up if you feel you have failed or disappointed. You are fully loved and accepted exactly as you are. You don’t ever have to do or be anything more than just yourself. Even on the days when you make a mistake or can’t be your best, that’s enough. Always remember you are a human being, not a human doing. Just being is enough, no matter what you may be like in any given moment. No matter what, no matter where, I’ll be right beside you through the best and the worst until they ring those golden bells for you and me.
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