We will shine

Do you remember the day like I do?

The piercing chill of the late February winter;the bells high above the chapel ringing weighty and hopeful;the pastel aroma of flowers clouding the wintry air, soft as a whisper;the haphazard dashing of white rice, a spriteful and hearty ritual.

Then the final march down the petal-strewn aisle, each step a jagged heartbeat. The sweat on my hands, the sweat on your brow. The sweat on our bodies the following night.

It’s been so long since then, and, despite what we believed in the weeks after, the time has hardly been perfection-our ‘endless’ bliss receded, and on its heels came a thundercloud of doubt, a hurricane that wreaked uncertainty and ambivelence-but with the storm came sunlight, rays so earnest in their luminescence that they threatened to blind me. Though there were pitfalls and perils, obsidian waves that promised to rock us apart, I still held on, because the darkness was always chased by a light that burned away black feelings, a light that cast you in a glow so pure that I ranked you with the angels. Again and again the shadows came, and again and again, we kept our fire through it. The storm was unbeatable, but so were we.

Until now.

At first, I tried to hide it-the perpetual migraines, sleepless nights, the way my legs buckled like a newborn’s with every quaking step. I covered each bout of staccato speech with a dismissive laugh, attributted every fall to a faulty step or cracked pave, made every spell of nausea seem vapid, fleeting. I concealed all signs as best I could and yet still you saw, and when I finally showed you the truth, your devastation wrought a tempest so hellish I feared it would consume the both of us.

But, like always, bleak days passed and, though there hung above us perennial gloom, a stark brilliance still managed to break through. Between the consultations and the treatments, the hope found and lost, the sighs and the sorrows, was the pleasure, the laughter, the pure and simple happiness, because there you were.

And here you are still, at the end, when my twisted limbs knot beneath me in pain, and my skin is a mishmash of sallow whites and muted grey-blues. The gloom is descending now- I see it in the glass beads of your silent tears, the slight shake of your always steady fingers. Your pain is absolute, a warning of the greater devastation to come-but haven’t we been through storms, my love? Haven’t we thought our end was coming, so many times before? Haven’t we been captured by the night and saved by the sun?

Even now, I don’t see darkness or light at the end of the tunnel, but the infinity of us-the you and me of the before and the now and the meant to be. There is no death for us. We are forever. The vows we made that winter day, long ago ring as true as ever.

-for better or for worse-

-in sickness and in health-

-til death do us part-

-and brings us together again-

-we will shine.

Together.