reunion

For those who believe in resurrection, death is inconsequential. It's not an ending but rather a new beginning. A second chance, a reunion. The very idea of resurrection is so seductive a concept it's easy to forget, before you can rise from the dead you have to spend a few days in hell.

Even in hell, there are rules.

...I am about eight years old when I first become aware of being other--foreign, outside, separate. Because this lesson comes from my own family, it resonates deeper and truer than playground taunts ever have.

I became convinced that I was being watched.Because self was still leaking everywhere, a part of me began to think it was Mizuko rather than a stranger. I hoped that there might still be a reunion. I hoped it in the shy, sly way hope comes out of the jar, the mistranslated box, last__fter everything and everyone else has escaped.

I needed out. The Jeep wasn__ fast enough. I shut it down, grabbed the keys and started running like a bear was at my heels. I couldn__ even see Henry anymore through my tears so it surprised me when he caught me in his arms halfway. The first thing I did was pound on his chest and ask him why he hadn__ called. The second thing I did was kiss him so hard he couldn__ answer me.

His smile wavers. I've been looking at him too long. 'Are you OK?' he says. I nod, take a deep breath. Then I lean over and kiss him.

The sweetness of reunion is the joy of heaven.

Do not follow me! Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tommorrow. Let the stars keep track of us. Let us ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet. May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies!

If she were here I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off her. I would hold her so close she'd beg me to let her breathe. I'd kiss her so hard she'd plead for mercy. I'd unfasten her clothing and lie with her on that hard bed, and what was between us would be as far above the ordinary congress between man and woman as the stars are above their pale reflections in the lake below.

I__ think about you and how I didn__ want us to end. It__ complicated__ax still held her, his thumbs stroking the spot on her wrists where her pulse was thundering away. __ncomplicate it then. Did you miss