The Notebook

When I see you now—moving slowly with new life growing inside you—I hope
you know how much you mean to me, and how special this year has been. No
man is more blessed than me, and I love you with all my heart.
I put it aside and found another, this one from a cold evening thirty-nine years
ago:
Sitting next to you, while our youngest daughter sang off-key in the school
Christmas show, I looked at you and saw a pride that comes only to those who
feel deeply in their hearts, and I knew that no man could be luckier than me.
And after our son died, the one who resembled his mother … It was the
hardest time we ever went through, and the words still ring true today:
In times of grief and sorrow I will hold you and rock you, and take your grief
and make it my own. When you cry, I cry, and when you hurt, I hurt. And
together we will try to hold back the floods of tears and despair and make it
through.
I pause for just a moment, remembering him. He was four years old at the
time, just a baby. I have lived twenty times as long as he, but if asked, I would
have traded my life for his. It is a terrible thing to outlive your child, a tragedy
I wish upon no one.
They went on, this correspondence of life and love, and I read dozens more,

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some painful, most heart-warming. By three o’clock I was tired, but I had
reached the bottom of the stack. There was one letter remaining, the last one I
wrote to her, and by then I knew I had to keep going. I lifted the seal and
removed both pages. I put the second page aside and moved the first page into
better light and began to read:
My dearest Allie,
The porch is silent except for the sounds that float from the shadows, and for
once I am at a loss for words. It is a strange experience for me, for when I
think of you and the life we have shared, there is much to remember. A lifetime
of memories. But to put it into words? I am not a poet, and yet a poem is
needed to fully express the way I feel about you.
So my mind drifts and I remember thinking about our life together as I made
coffee this morning. Kate was there, and so was Jane, and they both became
quiet when I walked into the kitchen. I saw they’d been crying, and without a
word I sat myself beside them at the table and held, their hands. And when I
looked at them, I saw you from so long-ago, the day we said goodbye. They
resemble you and how you were then, beautiful and sensitive and wounded
with the hurt that comes when something special is taken away. And for a
reason I’m not sure I understand, I was inspired to tell them a story.
I called Jeff and David into the kitchen, for they were here as well, and when
the children were ready I told them about us and how you came back to me so
long ago. I told them about our walk, and the crab dinner in the kitchen, and
they listened with smiles when they heard about the canoe ride, and sitting in
front of the fire with the storm raging outside. I told them about your mother
warning us about Lon the next day—they seemed as surprised as we were—
and yes, I even told them what happened later that day, after you went back to
town.
That part of the story has never left me, even after all this time. Even though
you described it to me only once, I remember marvelling at the strength you
showed that day. I still cannot imagine what was going through your mind
when you walked into the lobby and saw Lon, or how it must have felt to talk
to him. You told me that the two of you left the inn and sat on a bench by the