“Somehow she knew that you didn’t get many moments like this in your life: moments when you knew, without any doubt, that you were alive, when you felt the air in your lungs and the wet grass beneath your feet and the cotton on your skin; moments when you were completely in the present, when neither the past nor the future mattered. She tried to slow her breathing, hoping somehow to make this moment last forever.”
-Neil Gaiman

It was a day before he left.

My hands graced his chiseled jaw.

My eyes melted looking into his.

He asked what I was doing.

I responded with “Remembering this moment.”

It was under the sheets as the sun seeped through.

We’d lift them like a tent and stay in our “warmth bubble”.

Refusing to remember that time was clicking by.

In that moment, it was frozen.

It was his hand inching over to hold mine for the firs time.

In that truck on our way back from the zoo.

It was our last kiss.

Gate 14.

It’s waking up and stepping outside to smell the dew and feel the warmth of the sun on my back.

It’s walking down a path in India and soaking in each smell, sight and person.

It’s the knowledge that I get to meet the most amazing people and do what I love.

It’s cuddling with my dogs and hugging my family extra tight.

It’s now.

It was then.

It’s the moments.

The moments before tragedy struck.

The moments after.

Both stunning.

Both beautiful.

Both paving the way for those to still come.