for you, who gave my world light

How do you trace a memory, a collection of moments in time beside half of your heart in human form? I like to, in traditional fashion, start at the beginning.

This is the first time I saw you.

You were playing a show in your band. Lead guitarist. Unassuming, with no knowledge that that night, this picture would change my life. I would look at it, marveling at it, wondering about the person in it. This was actually when I first realized my passion for photography, when I knew the depths in a photograph.

I would learn your name, Shane, and I made it my mission to know you, to be a part of your world. I would succeed. Not only did we become close friends, best friends, but we fell for each other, we spent days together, learning about each other. You said I was so random, the most random person you'd ever met, and you always made me laugh, smile, and forget my problems. I'm sorry I ignored you that summer, a few months after we formed our bond. I was immature, and I needed time to heal. Years later I'm healing again, but you're not here with me to make the hurting less painful.

I love your family--I still do after all. I indulged in the delicious times we spent up there surrounded by laughter and love. I was a skinny bitty thing when we met, but that changed. Food helped, as evidenced here.

You came in such a delicate whisper into my life, and when you left it's as if the oceans flooded the beaches and the land, all of it, and don't forget I can't swim. I'm drowning every day, some days I come up for air, and I have these pictures, the glimpses into the past that remind me about who I am, who I was, who I will always be. 

It happens that whenever you spend enough time with someone and you form a consistent commitment that you want to spend forever together. 

Here's one of my favorite things I remember about you, your love for music. We got to create this in our engagement session.

I made a lot of mistakes, and I couldn't hold on to someone so bright that the stars paled in fear of your brilliance. I have to face this now, and I think even as I write this I struggled to coherently communicate my thoughts. Isn't that the bitter reality of life, that we have this insight when everything is gone and we are standing on a shaky cliff overlooking the ocean I mentioned earlier? This is as high as I could climb, and my only choice is still to fall to what must become of me.

Guitar Hero? You were mine.

You probably wont remember but there were days we would sing together? We would think of a song to sing and we'd join voices. Mine wasn't much to remember, but I think that's what it must feel like to make music with someone you love.

We adored each other. See that shirt I'm wearing? It's the first shirt I saw you in. I'm smiling so big because I'm probably thinking about that. 

Then it finally happened. We got married.

Even though I was an hour late, this was the happiest day of my life. I was yours in name, in fact, in every reality. Life was just beginning all over again.

We went to Hawaii. 

No matter what how can I thank you for that experience? I may never see a place more beautiful in my life. 

But then we came to odds. We fought and fought. And I cried. You cried. We were standing on two different steps, and no matter how much love there was it couldn't help the crumbling of where we stood. 

Why do I write this? Why do I put it out there? For months I've tried to dull down the pain with every distraction I can imagine. At first I tried to keep myself busy, going, going, going from place to place, never staying quiet, nor still for a moment to reflect. And then I wanted to experience every regret, every sorrow, and I cried for nights, every night, I cried myself to sleep. I always wondered what you were going through, too. I envied you for moving on so fast while I scrambled in vain to pick up the pieces of the past five years. 

It is my sincere hope that this post will help someone who feels like his or her world is over right now. I want to offer you solace that your world is not over, that the world never leaves you nor deserts you; God is not like that. Oh my God it is going to hurt like hell sometimes. At first it will feel like you are in a type of hell. You can love someone so so so much, and sometimes life gets in the way and it tears apart two people who were once perfectly in sync. 

Nothing can take away what I remember though. And if you are reading this, whoever you are, I want you to remember that. Days from now, years from now you will smile and laugh and cry and thank the Universe that he or she was in your life. And if God is Good as God is then they will return. In what form only God knows, but be faithful and patience and true to who you are, what you want to be. And wait.

I love you, and stay strong,

Saira

PS: Listen to this Allison Krauss song and reflect on all of this.