On March 16th, 2020 we parted.
I boarded a plane to Michigan, you back to our island home in American Samoa.
I remember so clearly the last words I spoke to you…
“I don’t want any of this to be happening.”
Although we suspected some upcoming travel inconveniences due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, I don’t think either of us could have predicted the extent of what was about to happen.
Our Covid-19 story will be different from many others.
Many people will tell tales of being forced to be together hour after hour, day after day, week after week in lockdown.
Others will retell and relive the agony of loved ones lost to sudden illness.
Some may even talk about what a blessing the time was. A time to slow down and enjoy one another without interruption.
Our story is different.
March 27th, 2020 was the last flight to and from our island.
The runway has been silent since.
An impossible ocean separates us, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it until the flights resume and we are able to cross the great Pacific once again.
All of my adult life I have never had to face anything alone.
We have always been together.
I have always known that you were the strong one in our marriage. The steady one. I didn’t really realize how much I need that strength to face simple, daily life.
I am not unhappy, but I am sad.
I am not alone, but I am lonely.
I do not live in fear, but I am afraid.
I am me, but I am not myself.
Wow. It is harder than I imagined being apart. Especially in the middle of such a fabulous adventure. Such a beautiful experience.
The lovely intermission of our life’s story.
I didn’t set out to love you so, but here I am pining, as they said in days of old.
Pining for our long, lazy conversations about everything & nothing. Our walks along the sand looking for new shells and beach treasures washed ashore from bygone times.
I miss you.
All of this confirmed what I have suspected for years…
I am not fully me without you.
It is more than two halves making a whole.
More than 50+50=100.
More than even 100+100=100
It is the unwritten mathematics of Love and it goes something like this:
1 whole person + 1 whole person = infinite capacity for life & love, growth & discovery, energy & fullness.
You push me beyond my 100%…you let me stretch upward and onward passed the limitations of fullness and completion into the realms of the beyond where the wonderful freedom to be myself and more awaits!
After being given this freedom to live beyond what I thought possible, my abundance spills over and I have an ample supply to offer back to you to do the same…creating an endless cycle of abundance for each of us to live way beyond the means of our fair share of life ❤
If you have this in your relationship, you know of what I speak.
If you don’t, I PRAY you will find it, and cultivate it with tender care it deserves. Begin practicing it within your relationship..I promise the rewards will amaze you.
We are wanderers at heart, you and I. We drift on the high seas of our own imaginations and creativity.
What one of us doesn’t think of, the other surely will…spelling a life lived on a slightly different bent…
But what a view from that angle!
Before the end of one adventure, we plan the next. Before the setting of one day, we talk of the next sunrise. What fun it is to be with you ❤
On March 16th our story turned to one of those chapters that no one saw coming. There was little foreshadowing to predict where we would be 60+ days later.
Still separated by The Mighty Pacific.
You, alone on our island where the runway still sits in silence.
Me quarantined in Hawaii, holding a confirmed plane ticket on a flight unable to reach its destination.
Our Covid Pandemic story is unique because it is our own.
It is unique because it separated two people who are no longer two people but one life story plunging forward at break-neck speed toward the ever-changing tide of risk and reward that comes from surrendering to dreams that stretch beyond the normal and bring the impossible closer and closer to reality.
People say that our decisions are daring, reckless, and incomprehensible at times.
But I will share a secret….
Once you take the first step toward doing something you didnt think possible, you soon realize that it really wasn’t that strange. You’ll soon look around you and take note that there is always greater risk to be taken, there are higher mountains that beg to be climbed, there are more remote islands to be discovered and there are countless plots of sod that long to feel the weight of your footstep.
So, my dear reader…wherever you are in this Pandemic frenzy, I pray that you have not suffered separation as we have suffered.
I pray that the challenges you faced are growing lighter with each new dawn.
And finally I pray that this time has drawn us closer to those in our lives who more than complete us, but who give us the freedom to press higher and higher to becoming more than our 100% so that we, in turn, can offer them the same ❤
The theme of my Pandemic story is undoubtedly:
I am not me, without you….
Until we meet again…I ache.
From My Island 