Not Our

We didn’t write our wedding vows.

We both believed the words from the Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer said all that was needed.

So death did part us.

His oft expressed hope we could “go together” was a prayer unanswered.

Yet before that final departure, we both spoke of other things.

If “I go first,” he said.

Interrupting, I told him there would never be another.

And so it is and will be.

I also spoke of a hope (If I made the final trip before him)

he would “not know loneliness, but never love again.”

And then we both laughed,

pretending it would never happen.

How naive we were even long after youth had fled into memory.

When the inevitable happened the reality of the words of Thomas Cramer were recalled on a

beautiful Autumn morning. and

While There were no consoling words in the sudden silence to shield the survivor.

the original words spoken by two very young lovers had never been forgotten.

And the knowledge that neither of us could have said it better.