This morning, at our up north cabin, I woke up late and alone, but that was only for a moment. The sun was shining brightly and as I got out of bed, I saw, on the wall, briefly projected by the scattered sunlight that shone through the leafy trees and the window, the image of your face, and I felt you with me. Even after the sun rose higher and the image was gone, you were still with me, in my heart, in my soul. But that’s nothing new – you’ve been occupying that same real estate for thirty six years now.

Then I thought for a while about the sunbeam that originated from the center of our universe, from about 93 million miles away, and how it was still strong enough to show your face on my wall, and I thought about how it burns so hot it can melt objects into their gooey sub matter from even that great distance.  It occurred to me that the only force stronger and brighter than the sun is your smile and the light that emanates from it.  It’s my favorite thing in all of creation, and its light has been melting my heart every day for the past thirty six years now.

Scientists say that it takes only eight minutes and twenty seconds for a beam of sunlight to traverse the 93 million miles to earth. That may be, but I know that it took the entire almost fifty nine years of the life I’ve lived so far for that specific beam of sunlight to project your face on our cabin wall this morning, and it’s taken a lifetime of loving you to illuminate the uncharted and unexplored dark wildernesses of even the most remote regions of my soul.