Dear LJ

Saturday, November 21, 2009

      It’s early in the morning—far earlier than my alarm is set to ring, but I knew this would happen. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep when this day finally arrived. (“I feel like it’s mine, too,” I told her.) It’s one of those days with such long anticipation you’re sure that time will break its own rules and this day won’t ever actually come.

This epic changing day—my best friend kneels across the altar from her sweetheart, and I trust the care of this incredible woman to this incredible man, forever.

I feel like a parent, giving her away; in the same breath, a little child who has lost her mother. I guess that paradox is just called Best Friends.

Alright, alright—she’s not dying. But after all the times of being there for her when she said goodbye to Lj, it is my time to say a kind of goodbye while they experience the most wonderful hello. This hello holds the surety of a time with no more goodbye—instead, eternal union, everlasting love. This is the real deal.

I’m beginning to understand the smallest portion of the reason why this thing called love is the center of our whole existence.

LJ, you take care of her. I love this woman. You have to know this. You have to know how heaven sent she was to little uprooted me, sophomore year of high school. You have to know the light and the joy she has brought to my life; you have to know the depth and the breadth of this thing we’ve built, in the same time as you were building your love with her. She has been my exemplar, my silver lining, my closest friend and confidant. She means the world to me. I have felt these years that she is my other half. (in a girl way.)

I know you feel this way about her too. It’s finally time for my love to take its proper place—but you have to know, you have to know this one thing: In this union today, my love for her is my love for you, too. You two knit together create something so uniquely beautiful, for which I am grateful to have seen.

Please take care of my best friend, LJ. I know you will. I love you both more than words can say.

Thank you for being a man equal to the task.

All my love,

Brooke