To My Beloved

To my Beloved,

There’s been many amazing people who have risen to the occasion during the dark times of Covid-19. We rightfully call them heroes. Many work till they cannot move anymore, or keep their eyes open, and all the while exposing themselves to the same illness that has killed almost 100,000 people in the span of 100 days.

But I want to talk about another everyday Covid hero, you, my beloved.

August 2017, we met each other during freshman orientation. I thought you were nice, but our majors were very in completely different buildings and I thought I would never see you again.

January 2018, you picked me up from the airport and I almost threw up in your truck while you were trying to ask me out to dinner. We laughed about it later, but we didn’t know what was making me sick.

Summer, Fall, and Winter of 2018 I ghosted through. Only the faintest memories remain of you coming to my room and us eating and laughing for a time together. I was so sick that I barely made it to class each day, but you always came when I needed you, a constant source of life, love, and strength.

Sometime in this grey period, you shared with me a quote from Tolkein’s book. It was spoken by Samwise Gamgee, one of the greatest friends to have ever been written. He said,

“It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something...That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.”

Little did you know that this quote described exactly where our lives were headed. I’ve read this quote a million times, and heard it from your lips a few, but it has never yet lost it’s truth.

September 2019, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness. My world had been full of darkness for three years, and it had just gotten much darker.

After I got off the phone, I looked you in the eye, the eyes of the one I loved more than life itself, and I told you that it was time that we broke up. I didn’t want you to live the rest of your life with someone so broken. I told you that someone else would love you better. You didn’t believe me. Instead, you wrapped me up in your arms and told me about how much you loved me, and that if I was as sick as I was that day, worse, or better, you would still love me. And I believed you.

While I cannot bring my eyes from the ground, afraid to go forward as the words “how could the end still be happy” circle in my head, you are looking up and pulling us both towards the dawn of a new day. And all the while you are telling me how strong I am, that I can make it, and how beautiful and bright the new day will be. You started to call me your sunshine, because to you I was your new day.

December 27, 2019, you asked me to marry you in the driveway of my parents’ house. You proposing to me was the first glimpse I had of a new day dawning, one we would meet together. I am honestly not sure we would still be together if I wasn’t sick, because in the darkness I realized that I needed to be saved and you needed someone to rescue. Sometimes we have to walk through the dark in order to really see clearly.

March 11, 2020, the school closed. My personal world had been dark for three years, but now the world at large was plunged into a deep and terrible darkness. You helped me pack up my apartment, and squeezed in packing up yours when you should have been sleeping. You committed to fly home with me, because I was too afraid and too sick to fly by myself.

You stayed with my family and I for almost two months. Despite how hard it was, this time holds some of my favorite memories of us. I remember waking up early in the morning to come and wake you up before we had classes for the day. You would smile when you heard me come in, even though you weren’t actually awake yet.

We walk a dark story now, the two of us and as a nation. In this hard time, we must hold on to the things that are good in life, the things that point us towards the light. Because if we do not look for the light, we may get lost in this long dark night.

Thank you for always pointing me towards the light, and walking me ever closer when I cannot bear to lift my head from the ground. I cannot wait to greet a shining new day with you.

May 22, 2021, will be the best day of our lives.

Love,

Your Sunshine