October 15, 2070
The story of our life together is like the well worn material of a beloved article of clothing.
Rippling out like waves,
Threaded lifelines of fabric.
They weave together and fray apart,
Different pieces of a whole.
There is beauty in its simplicity,
An exceptional love affair in rags.
Full of stitches and seams,
Fragile but difficult to shred.
A weathered piece of cloth,
An immeasurable amount of joy.
/
January 25, 2071
I took my coffee next to Dean this morning. It was very cold, and i swear i could hear him laughing at me as I shivered. Claire made omelettes, despite her youngest child throwing a fit about her choices.
Despite how loudly i protested, I am very grateful Claire and her husband have moved in with me. Their presence has eased my loneliness, and their children remind me so much of our Henry.
He says he is bringing a girl home to visit this summer, someone he met on a dig. I am happy he has found something he his so passionate about, but i do wish there were more archeological dig sites in Montana.
He called yesterday, like always. I don't know if he even meant to, or if it was just by habit that he called on Dean's birthday. I spent the day in bed, and Claire let me. I read over some of my old journals. I started with when i met Dean and got all the way through when we adopted Henry, before falling asleep.
It amazes me, how intensely i felt for Dean and how quickly i felt it. My love for him was incredibly powerful, and at times so gut-wrenchingly painful, it is a wonder we were able to grow old together.
Stories like ours rarely have happy endings, and we got one.
We spent over fifty years together. We had a child, a boy we name Henry who lit up a world we were convinced couldn't get any brighter. Our home was filled with the clack of my keyboard, the strumming of Dean's guitar, the laughter of our friends and family, the soft rap of our son's first steps.
Our home surrounded us in love and comfort when we needed it.
It provided a final resting place for Sam, and just last August it did the same for Dean.
I hear him in every creak of this house.
I see him in every shadow the clouds cast across our bedroom.
I feel him in the breeze, i feel him in the sun's warmth.
Dean is everywhere, he is all around me.
He still sets the rhythm of my heart.
When it finally decides to stop, I will join Sam and Dean in the water.
It hurts, everyday it hurts to not wake up with him by my side. Kissing me good morning and raking my hair across my forehead. Its so painful, sometimes i fear i may not survive it.
But then I am reminded of everything else my life has given me, that my most precious gift was not my only. Dean is gone, but i am still surrounded by life.
As I sit here, remembering all of the heartache i went through years ago, and the tremendous sorrow i experience now, I am reminded of a quote from Leaves of Grass, the Whitman book Dean and I read together. It's something that has occurred to me, over and over through the years and I find it befits this journal entry more than any other.
"It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess,"
"But yet,"
"It satisfies, it is great."