Four years ago, on a warm afternoon in July, Jared sat at the bottom of my bed as I slept. I hadn’t heard him come in, but when I awoke, he was there.
I smiled and babbled on about my day and how work at Doctor Fornaratto’s had made me so tired that I had no other choice but to come straight home for a nap.
He listened. And sat. Then I realized how trivial I was sounding, and how, at this moment, he had come to me for comfort.
Earlier in the day, in a town away from ours, a man, a husband, a grandfather named Morgan Buttars had died. That man, that grandfather, had belonged to Jared. And now that Jared sat there on my bed, beside me, seeming so fragile, so grieved that my arms nearly reached out to hold him.
Strange to think of it now, they did not, even though we had never once touched before. Instead, they sat folded across my chest.
I was quiet. I was listening.
We both sat very, very still.
Back then, I insisted (mostly in my mind), that we were only friends. I was nursing my own heart (it had been broken), and he spent his weekend nights in the company of other girls.
Our summer that year intended, for us, a friendship. That, and only that. Of this, I was certain. In the evenings, we drove around town. We ate at one, lone restaurant several times a week and paid for ourselves. We were not together. We were friends.
And in the days that followed, as a friend, Jared’s friend, I listened to the stories of Morgan Buttars.
He told me of how Morgan loved red. How he loved Sunday dinners and polished golf clubs. He told me of how he loved a clean car. New cars. And all things shiny. He insisted on scrubbing the exterior of his house(s), as in brush-and-bubbles, top-to-bottom, at least twice a year. His yard(s) were weed-less. His house(s), clean. He was nothing short of impeccable and I saw that. Through the memory of his grandson, I learned.
When the weather cooled that year, Jared and I, we lit ourselves afire. And in mere months, we joined ourselves eternally.
As I look back, I see that July afternoon as the recognizable beginning of something that would, in time, grow within our hearts to be much larger. I don’t consider our beginning to have been years and years back, when we first met when I was fifteen. I don’t look back to the September afternoon that we, as semi-friends, said goodbye for his two-year mission. And I don’t look back to when we met back up at school, all grown and changed. I see our beginning as the day he came to sit beside me on my little apartment bed,
wanting, choosing to be near
me, as he grieved.
For in this life, grief is necessary, and it comes in waves. Joyousness, too. And Jared and I will share all of it together. Here, and hereafter.
And I do see with understanding eyes how we all long for familiarity, every single one of us. How we desire it in our lives. I recognize that as an eternal desire, a desire intended for our earthly hearts. It keeps us looking further, with faith, with hope.
I think of the gospel and Heavenly Father’s unwavering plan that, in my heart, is familiar to me. That plan that teaches, or rather, helps us remember that this life is just the beginning, and that onward, there is so much more that awaits us.
What I have come to know about Morgan Buttars has come from those who were (are) in love with him. Those who cannot forget him. Those who look anxiously to the day they see him again.
As for me, I have fallen in love with him too. And for now, I have my very own little Morgan man. My darling. My son, whose namesake he shares with another.
And yes, we all look onward. All of us.
We will all someday meet again.
