So this is the last chapter guys :( December 2020.
Thirty-three years old and I feel like I'm a teenager taking those vows again. All this time without her and yet she was with me every step of the way. I drove my Porsche past a rummage sale and looked at all the people scurrying around too busy to even appreciate someone was watching, envying them. I turned and slowed in front of the huge Southern Baptist church. I reached out to adjust my side mirror, looking at my simple gold wedding band. I knew I had to do this, for me, for her.
I turned my car into a driveway just past the church and head for a cluster of buildings, behind the buildings to the house right by the cemetery. I go up the walkway and onto the front porch. I press the doorbell and am greeted by the nurse that opens the door. I entered quietly. I was winter now and cold I wiped my feet on the floor as the nurse disappears, leaving me waiting looking at a framed photo of Spencer as Lizzie in The Rainmaker...
The nurse returns, helping an old man as he shuffles in, Reverend Carlin. He's stooped, thin, and balding, his skin was parchment thin. I leant forward and embraced him, stiff, uncomfortable, uncertain.
"You've been well?"
"Yes. You?" I could tell that he wasn't but was polite.
"Getting by." Probably wondering why I'm here.
"I'm… I'm returning something." I twist the ring on my finger to remove it. "This belongs to you." I give him my wedding ring. I searched for the right words to say, something meaningful after all these years.
"She taught me everything. She saved my life." He turned away, overcome with sadness. I think he knew now why I had come.
"You're marrying again."
"Yes." I reply weakly.
"Spencer wanted that. She told me." I knew because she had told me before she passed but I was grateful to hear it from her father.
"I'm sorry she never got her miracle." It was the only thing on her list I couldn't tick off, everything else we had done or I had done for her.
"She did. It was you." Deeply touched, I hugged the old man again, this time warmly, fully.
I said goodbye and left the Carlin house for the last time.
Spencer once said when you're feeling love, you're also feeling God. She made me a believer, in love and in life. In the journey that never ends and in the mystery of all things you can't see but feel everywhere around you...
I close my eyes. She's there...
One last time I see her beautiful face and hear her last words "You're my angel, I love you" I knew it wasn't the end, I knew we would meet again and that she was happy, at peace.
After all, I was her angel.
I've really enjoyed writing this :) Thanks to all those who have reviewed and favourited this story, even to those that just read. It has been a pleasure! The End!