In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that.

Like her father, he wasn't comfortable sharing his thoughts and feelings. She tried to explain that she needed to be closer to him, but it had never seemed to make a difference.

I love you now for what we've already shared, and I love you now in anticipation of all that's to come.

The key to happiness was achievable dreams.

I may be older and wiser, I may have lived another life since then, but I know that when my time eventually comes, the memories of that day will be the final images that float through my mind. I still love her, you see, and I‟ve never removed my ring. In all these years I‟ve never felt the desire to do so.

"Aren't you frightened?" Somehow I expected her to say no, to say something wise like a grownup would, or to explain that we can't presume to understand the Lord's plan. She looked away. "Yes," she finally said, "I'm frightened all the time." "Then why don't you act like it?" "I do. I just do it in private." "Because you don't trust me?" "No," she said, "because I know you're frightened, too."

And when I came in with tears in my eyes, you always knew whether I needed you to hold me or just let me be. I don't know how you knew, but you did, and you made it easier for me.