With

He said the Fourth of July was a turning point for him. We lay there, completely incapacitated by something intense and immediate and awful that we had eaten earlier at the neighborhood picnic we had looked forward to for weeks. There were going to be fireworks later. We could just take our chairs down the hill one block and take in the view of Lake Union, the tens of thousands of people coverng the hill of Gasworks Park, and the hundreds of boats hull-to-hull on the lake, all festively lit by colorful fireworks in the summer sky.

That was the plan. Instead we lay nearly unable to move. He was violently and repeatedly sick for hours. On the bed. I didn’t care. I rested my hand on his back and once managed to get up and get a towel that became his lifeline, his sole comfort. I didn’t leave. I stayed because he is my love and he needed loving. In my own pain it was all I could do to hear the thunder in the sky and remember those were the fireworks we were missing. My love was there and he needed loving. I stayed.

He said later that was a turning point for him, of knowing that I am really with him. With. Him. I’ve been examining this since, and every week that goes by brings me a deeper sense that just as I am with him, he too is with me. Last week he drew Hangman on a dry erase board while I had a piece of me cut out under a bright light. Last month he stood behind me in silent support while others symbolically stood in front of me, barring our way. Yesterday I parted the leaves of our newly-potted plants and made space while he added fresh soil. Today I write while he dons manly leather gloves in our basement. Tomorrow we will live impossibility while we dream our lives into being. With him.