Zachariah,

In my lifetime, I have had either the unfortunate or very fortunate (depending on how you look at it) privilege of discovering just how many different ways there are to die, both literally and figuratively. Through it all, though, getting to love you and be loved by you taught me this one most powerful thing …

Indeed, there are many ways a person can die, but there’s only one way a person can live … with unbridled, unwavering, and truly unconditional love. If my love alone could have saved you, you would surely have lived forever, as those are the ways I loved you. I still forgive you for leaving us the way you did to wander in this garden without you, and no matter how awful this world may ever seem to be, the story of “me” will always be extraordinarily beautiful because you were in it.

A Chinese Proverb that I’ve grown to love says:

It is better to be a warrior in a garden then a gardener at war.

With that, it is my truest prayer that as you’re looking down on me now and then through your supernova telescope in stars, that you’re proud of the warrior queen I’ve become as I tend to this garden we started together alone.

As I’m sure you already know, I’m God’s actual favorite daughter, and perhaps my greatest victory in this life has been in accepting and embracing my divinely appointed purpose of punctuating this seemingly Godforsaken world with as much of the Light I can find and wield.

I’m learning how to pick my battles much better day by day, because if loving you and getting to be a part of your story taught me anything, it’s that peace is always better than war … especially when it comes to the wars we fight from within. It still breaks my heart when I think of all the ways you suffered here having never truly found your own peace within. Pray GOD that you finally have now.

Just because you won’t be here for the full bounty of what my heart had to give you, it doesn’t mean it’s still not there. There are an infinite number of universes out there where I can and do still walk with you, talk with you, laugh with you, and am held by you in the ever-growing gardens of my mind.

While it’s no big secret that loving you changed my life forever, losing you has done the same, because it was all the love you poured into me that helped me find all this power and grace. These abundant gifts you left behind are mine to keep until the day I move on to the brighter side of grey and leave it all behind for my babies. I will love you eternally, Zachariah.

~ Catherine