The Gift of What Was

I choose to remember you with sunlight,

not shadows—the way your laughter

painted mornings golden, how we learned

to love imperfectly and completely.

Those years were not practice rounds

or rough drafts of happiness.

They were the real thing,

whole and necessary,

each moment a thread in the tapestry

that is me, now.

Thank you for the arguments that taught me

my own voice, for the tenderness

that showed me my heart’s true size,

for the ending that revealed

how much beauty I can hold

without breaking.

I am not the same person

who first loved you,

and that is the point—

every joy, every fracture

was a doorway

leading me here,

to this moment of choosing

gratitude over grief,

wholeness over the myth

of what might have been.

You were perfect for me then.

I am perfect for me now.

And somewhere ahead,

love waits again,

richer for having known

the gift of what was.