Tenderness and Grit
A close friend died in 1999. After her funeral, grief’s full weight incapacitated me. My boyfriend led me into our cramped apartment bathroom and pushed back the plastic curtain on the claw foot tub. I sank into near-scalding water and sobbed out my deep sadness while he silently massaged my arms and back with salt scrub. The grit made my skin raw, then cool and alive. Nearly three decades later, with both our marriage and divorce behind us, we pull from the same well of tenderness to co-parent our three daughters. Where love once was, its roots remain. — Casey Robinson
No Need to Pretend
My parents came to visit for two days, an extended layover on the East Coast before they continued their journey to Bangladesh. As their adult daughter, I did my best to play the part of perfect host, but lasted just two hours before breaking down about the near-constant panic attacks I had been enduring for the past year. They embraced me tenderly, encouraging me to take necessary time off work. As they left, I apologized: “Sorry you had to come all this way to take care of me.” “You’re our daughter,” my mother replied, almost incredulous. “Don’t ever say that again.” — Shammamah Hossain
Apologies to Fellow Passengers
On a two hour flight, my identical twin sister, Hannah, and I talk and laugh the entire time, almost without breathing. When we arrive in North Carolina for the college graduation of our younger cousins (also twins), I ask if she has as much fun with other people as she does with me. She says no. I ask if she feels the same way about her fiancé as she does about me. She says no again. “He’s my other whole,” she explains, “but you’re my other half.” — Sophie Sutker
A Never-Ending One-Night Stand
Rich and I met at a bar in Atlanta in 2001. I asked him back to my place, not expecting that our hookup would evolve into dates full of laughter and storytelling. Within a year, we were in love. We wed in 2014 while vacationing in Provincetown, our rings inscribed with “always.” As youths, it was beyond our dreams to think we would ever be able to marry. Now in our mid 60s and early 70s, we relish the fact that we will be together forever … and “always.” — Daniel Owens
