Letters from Prea

Happy 4th Anniversary

Dear Varun,

I wish I had the words to describe the joy I feel being with you.  How does it keep getting better?  Last year it was our first anniversary as a family of 3. We have spent the last year with our heads barely above water and yet all I can remember is laughter and delight in watching you be a father. How lucky is Vishvashanti to have you and how even luckier am I to have you. 

I can’t imagine having this adventure with anyone else. I still only want to talk to you all day and night, every day for the rest of our life.  How is it possible for one person to be this happy?  I look at you a million times a day and can’t believe my good fortune. I’m desperately trying to feel every moment in all its glory just in case. 

Thank you for loving me. Thank you for your kindness and patience. Thank you for growing with me. Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for being my partner in all things. Thank you for going along with my crazy ideas and projects. Thank you for listening. Thank you for holding me. Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for helping me become a better person. Thank you for giving me time and space and confidence.

If I live a million lifetimes, I would choose you over and over again. Mary Oliver asks, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  Love you is my answer. Love you, love you, love you.  Love you thoroughly, fully, joyfully. 

Happy Anniversary my love,

Prea  

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

+ Mary Oliver