Brave Enough To Be Bliss

When Kylee got home that evening and we were sitting on the deck after dinner, I asked her if she replied to his message. It was clear from the look on her face that she did not share my excitement. At all. She was pissed.

At first, I was confused because it was rare that we saw things so differently. Kylee even called in back-up, asking Will how he took the message, and he agreed with her that John was definitely saying goodbye. I was stunned, but I’d been wrong many times before, so I said they could be right and I could be wrong, and was prepared to leave it at that. Kylee didn’t seem settled, though, and brought it up a couple more times while we were on the deck. I wasn’t arguing with her, but I simply wouldn’t agree that he was saying goodbye and instead stuck to my point that he doesn’t use the word love lightly at all. The fact he sent a message, and it included that word, was very kind and caring of him. It was about 10 p.m. and she had to work the next day, so I said we should just agree to disagree, and she better get to bed.

The next day, she sent me the following screenshot of the text she sent him about 30 minutes after we headed to bed, along with his reply.

And this confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt, new life had been breathed into his heart again. He was feeling. It didn’t matter what it was, he was feeling something, and that was good. Even if it wasn’t for me, at least there was hope that John could one day love again and this time he would have learned and grown enough to find a woman who was much further along on her journey than I was back then. And all of that made me so very happy for all of us. We had all learned and grown individually — even if not together as a family, like I had dreamed. When I wasn’t in Kansas City, I was in Hutchinson with Mom Sherri. She was in the midst of a whole home renovation, but it didn’t matter. My life had felt like her house looked for quite some time, so it felt just right. Some rooms were gutted, some

merely disheveled. It was messy in some places, but others were cleaned up and felt like home. In other words, it felt just like me and the new life I was creating for myself. It felt like home literally and figuratively, and even when it was completely renovated, pristine and new, the memories built in the past would still be there. Those couldn’t be erased even if they eventually changed a bit, as most do over time in my brain. Some hurts soften, some joy enhances, but the love remains through it all. In mid-June, a friend allowed me to stay in a house she rents to college students in Lawrence. It was so very kind of her, and I was grateful to have somewhere to get the things out of my car and feel like I had a temporary place to live versus visit. It seemed like an answer to prayer, as I had searched for a short-term rental online but didn’t find anything affordable and available for more than a week at a time. But after getting everything moved in and my computer set up, I was trying to work on the book edits but just couldn’t stay focused, which is very unlike me. I thought maybe it would take a couple days to get used to the surroundings, but it was also hard to sleep. There were three exterior doors, numerous windows, and it was ground level with a basement. There were six closets on the first floor alone and basements were always scarier, especially with four windows, so that was even more concerning. I would have to check all of the rooms and closets whenever I left the house and came back, which was a practice I had always had, but even after checking everything, I still wasn’t comfortable. In fact, it was more than discomfort, I didn’t feel safe.

It made no sense, and I was getting very irritated with myself. And then I realized, I hadn’t ever gotten back to the memory I had at Table Rock that I had stored in my brain. I hadn’t felt it all, I hadn’t talked about it, so I

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