Bernard would have loved to see this.
He would have loved to see our daughter learning to listen, our grandson growing up, and me rediscovering the woman I had been before I started believing that my purpose was to put everyone else first.
I looked at his photograph near the window.
“You see, Bernard,” I whispered, “I’m still here.”
For the first time in years, those words didn’t mean I was holding everything together for everyone else.
They simply meant that I was alive.
That I still had wishes.
Plans.
Friends to meet.
Books to read.
Walks to take.
And mornings when I could stay in bed a little longer without feeling guilty.
I was sixty-two years old.
I couldn’t change all the years I’d spent forgetting myself.
But I could choose what to do with the years I had left.
And this time, I wasn’t going to wait for someone else to give me permission to live.
