AT THE END OF EVERY NOVEMBER

Photo: from a date last week. Sometimes the best you can get is a little blurry and you love it nonetheless.

November reminds me of Ryan. Thanksgiving holiday, 2008, he returned to St. George from BYU, an exhausted and excited freshman. He was home! It had been one month since seeing him last, but that stretch apart proved something to me: I missed him.

I missed him so that I realized I l__ed him…and I told him on Thanksgiving Eve. He’d already gone home after visiting my family, but I had to tell him! So I texted.

I punched the confession out near midnight: “I don’t know what to say about this bursting feeling that I’m feeling, other than it must mean that – I love you. Yes, I love you. Goodnight!”

Next thing I knew, I was wrenched from my sweet dreams (probably about him) by my sister, Elise. “JENI. There’s a man at the window!” Rapping at the window, resembling a burly, scary man in a hoddie, was Ryan in a hoodie. He was laughing. He had freaked.us.out. 

I crawled out my window and joined him on the roof, now a few shingles away from the window. “Do not read this until 7:30 AM.” It was a single sheet of paper folded up in a square – a lengtheir reply to my text.

“Why not read it now?”

“Because.”

“You’re cute.” I nudged his arm which he then wrapped around me. He kissed me. And then he said it – the shorter reply to my text – “I love you, too.”

At the end every of November, I get that bursting feeling again. I love Ryan. I love him way more now than I did then, and heavens, I really loved him then. Thankfully he loves me, too. Of all things I’m grateful for, I am most grateful for that.