To Your Majesty the Queen,
Please write back to me so I'll know that you and Anna are alright; I didn't get a single letter on Rapunzel's birthday. I was waiting on you to offer some wise advice that would convince me to show my face in Corona that morning. I thought the kingdom was going to make it a day for mourning instead of a day for her life's celebration. I thought it was going to be impossible for me to get up.
I'm not going to say it wasn't, because I didn't plan on opening my bedroom doors at all.
But I did. And I'm so glad that I did...
I barely got through my opening speech, but I felt her small, warm hand slip into mine and hold on tight. I haven't felt her sunshine in so long that I almost didn't recognize it. The best part about feeling her against my skin is that she didn't leave me this time. She stayed the whole day and watched Corona relive her. She watched the island perform stage reenactments of the Tangled Tales of Rapunzel before placing gifts in front of her portrait with her parents; she watched me stumble over my words and sob out others.
She even saw the murals that were being made of her. She saw everything that made her birthday a genuine celebration of who she was — and I actually managed to smile through half of it. I cried through all of it, but I smiled, too. Our little us also got to meet her. Maybe not in the way that I or Rapunzel would have wanted her to, but in a way that she needed, and it was everything I needed to remember why I can't buckle under the weight of the crown I'm wearing.
I showed our daughter Rapunzel's paintings at sunset and she picked up a paintbrush for the first time. She tried to use my face as her first canvas, so we definitely had to settle for chalk. With a little help from Rapunzel herself, what made the end of the day bearable was Isolde drawing a small purple flower right next to her mother's in our bedroom. Now she can't stop making them in her room. I tried to give her a piece of vellum to draw on, but she prefers the floor.
Like mother, like daughter. It thankfully hasn't been "like father, like daughter." The kingdom would probably say the same. I can't blame them. Who can?
Today feels like it brought Corona together despite our numbers. Rapunzel always had this amazing way of putting things into perspective for people no matter what they were going through or how divided they were. Izzy does, too. I could really feel everyone giving Isolde the same love they gave Rapunzel when she released that first lantern into the sky. When the island and Rugen released theirs, we stood in that moment as one. Everything isn't magically "all better" on the outside or the inside, but for one day, we shared magic together. Remembering the person we loved made all of us feel like we had a reason to live.
And yet I still can't live without her. I'm just sorry that you and Anna aren't here to share her with us.
From Corona,
XVIII of July, 1848
Eugene