Page 90 of Exiled

And it’s still all you, Caleb.

He looks so much like you, more so every day. It’s an eerie resemblance, honesty. Anyone who knew you would instantly recognize you in Jakob.

But in his mannerisms, in the way he’s so laid back, willing to go with the flow, easy to please, he’s very much his daddy’s little boy. So You were right, my love. He is all ours, Yours and mine. Completely, utterly, ours, even if I do see you, Caleb, in him, and even if it does cause the tiniest, vaguest, most distant little pang of something sharp, way down deep inside me. A little something, a pinch. A reminder, is how I think of it.

A reminder of where I’ve been, what I’ve gone through to reach this place. What has occurred to provide me with this happiness, the daily joy.

To be able to wake up next to You, every single morning. To lie down beside You every night, to feel You, to taste You, to have the privilege of loving you, it is a joy.

To kiss Camila and Jakob, to bathe them, change them, chase them, discipline them when they have tantrums, to love them, to be their mother, it is pure joy.

Even at three in the morning.

Even when You and I are in the middle of loving each other, and the monitor crackles with the howl of an unhappy baby.

It is still joy.

And that ache, down deep inside, it is a reminder that, perhaps if you hadn’t taken the time to mold me, to feed me, even to lie to me about who I was, perhaps I wouldn’t be here. You could have left me alone in the hospital. But you didn’t. So for that, I am thankful.

For giving me a chance at life, even if it was, for a long time, on your terms, I am thankful.

For life,

for love,

for family,

I am thankful.

The End