Today 7 years ago, we formally tied the knot before friends and family.
When Norman fell mortally ill in 2017, I went to Guinevere and asked her for help and comfort. I took down words, which I felt streamed to me from her, and entitled it Song of healing. I made a crude monotype print, painting the words as a mirror image to themselves (a requirement for hand-printing letters), and used a few of Guinevere's leaves in the design.
Today 3 years ago, I gave Norman the framed picture as a fourth anniversary gift.
He died on the 26th day after that.
I published the song in Greater Matter, my book of poems tracking my journey of grief as a widow.
Norman's love for Guinevere, and for trees in general, built a foundation for me sounder than anything I had enjoyed before.
Is it presumptuous to say that Guinevere's witness to our covenant ensured that my heart be rooted into a love that was greater than our mere selves? A love that helped make me far more whole than I had been before, a love that healed woes and wounds and curses?
I don't know.
But I do know that I continue to live in and by the laws of love. And that love has deep roots beyond my human flesh, it has roots feeling into all the earth's lovelinesses.
