My beloved and loving Sophia -

Did you hear my heart beat last night as you lay your head on my chest to go to sleep? Did you hear it calling your name with each beat?

When you reached over to hold my hand just before sleep claimed you for the night did you feel the warmth of my soul? Did you feel it reaching for you in the middle of the night?

Just at the moment you went to sleep did you feel my kiss on your forehead and my whisper to you? A whisper to remind you, "That no other woman in the world is loved more than you are by me?"

It is cold tonight, an early winter night, and we are warmly tucked beneath what feels like 85 woolen blankets you have upon the bed. You are warmly bound in the lavender flannel gown that keeps you so warm. You are already asleep, yet I linger awake just a few minutes more. In those few minutes I feel your warmth against my side as I hold you close to me; I feel your breath upon my chest, gentle and steady in the darkness.

So many days and moments of love I recall that we have shared and I feel myself wanting to weep from the joy of knowing; of knowing that "No other man in the world is loved more than I am by you."

I know that some day the sky will fall, the sun will fail, and the stars will (one by one) blink out of existence; but at this moment it is Eternity and in this eternity there is nothing else in the universe except you and me and the love we feel for one another. Sleep well my precious darling, I love you.

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Sophia, my beautiful, my beloved –

Tell me; in how many ways can I say to you, “I love you!” - please tell me. I do not want to leave any one of them unsaid, either with my lips or with my soul. When you wake in the morning, before you even have time to open your eyes, I want you to feel the love I have for you. As you go through your day, no matter what happens, I want you to remember that my love is with you, never faltering for forgetting. When you go to sleep at night, I want the last thought you have to be of the love my soul feels for you. Even when you sleep, in your dreams, know that I am there loving you my darling.

Do you know that from the first time I said “I love you” until this very moment there has never been a time when I have not loved you? There has never a time when I did not go through the day feeling this ever-present love for you in my thoughts, in my actions, in every thing I do. There has never been a time where I did not feel your love for me as I made decisions, large and small, that would influence everything from what I had for lunch to life altering events.

You are my world, my life, you are that there is. I do not remember what life was like before I fell in love with you, it seems like another lifetime. I do not remember what I wanted from life before; since I fell in love with you I only want you, that is all my life needs to be complete.

Last night, I asked you to sing me to sleep and you laughed because you do not like your voice singing, but I love it. I lay there with my eyes closed as you sang that little song I like so much, the one about the boat, and smiled in my heart thinking about how lucky I am to be the object of such love as you give to me. So please, if I haven’t forgotten some way in which to tell you “I love you,” remind me my wonderful one; I don’t want to let anyone of them go unmentioned. You are the light in my eyes, the beat of my heart, you are all life and happiness and I love you more than I can say.


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Sophia, my precious and beloved Sophia –

I have never known if you fell in love with me because of my golden heart or my silver tongue (yes, I am being facetious), but there are times when my normal ability to verbally describe things in exacting detail fails me. Those times, without exception, are when I try to tell you how much I love you, how much I adore you, how worthless my life would be without you in it – I might as well be a mute when those things happen. The words I can find are nowhere nearly sufficient to tell you these things.

Earlier this evening I sat out back as I am prone to do most nights (must be my rural upbringing), and I heard the song of the frogs at night. It is not so much a song as a constant sound of the night and it reminded me of you and the love you give me without cease and without fail. It too is not so much a song as it is a constant. It is your gentle hand on my brow and your tender words in my ear. More than anything else, it is the serenity of spirit you bring upon me in times of turmoil.

I don’t know if I have ever told you or not, so let me tell you this now. Let me tell you in words that I can master and you can understand. In this life, I have never met another woman like you, one who would be your equal. In fact, I lived most of my life not knowing there could be a woman like you. This is the honesty of my heart speaking to you because I want you to know and never doubt how I feel about you. No angel of Heaven could be more beautiful of face or of spirit than you are to me, it would not be possible. No dream, waking or sleeping, could be more complete than you are in the reality of my day.

I love you.

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My Sophia, my love eternal -

Never again will I see the sun setting over water and not feel the passion of your love for me; not after watching you cry from the shear beauty of that act of nature. The beauty that fills your soul is, I have found over time, immeasurable. This single, simple act of the sun lowering itself into water, extinguishing itself for the day, moved you so deeply. I don’t know if you were moved by the beauty of the scene or if you were moved by the fact that the sun would not see things in the darkness; it does not matter, your tears were sincere and beautiful. As I held you close to me we said not a word and I did not attempt to wipe the tears from your face; tears of love and of joy are supposed to stay there.

Never will you hear the cello again in the same way. You virtually forced me to go to that concert the other night, knowing how much I hate leaving our humble home after dark. Once we there and I quit fussing and that funny looking young man began to play, I was moved beyond anything I have ever known. With every note he played I felt my heart, my soul being extracted and attached to your heart and soul; by the time he finished playing that first song I belonged to you as I never had. Is that the first time you had seen me cry? Were you surprised? You held my hand in a way you never had and I knew we had crossed a new threshold in our love for one another.

Surely, a God who is kind and loving will not limit us to just one lifetime, how piteous that would be. For I have found that one lifetime will not nearly be enough to give to you all the love I feel, I do not know how many it will take to accomplish that feat. Now that I have seen your depth and felt my own, I realize that Life and all of Time is required of us both to finish this job and to carve our names in the annals of the great loves of this Universe.


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My Sophia, my love unrivaled -

Clouds were building as I left town and I probably should have stayed there in the hotel for the night, but I wanted so badly to come home to you. The morning had been sunny and beautiful so I had walked the three miles to town that perfect fall day; I had no idea it would be flooding by dark. About halfway home it began to rain and all I could do was put one muddy foot in front of the other and think of you as I trudged my way back to you. I walked listening to the rain as it fell on and about me and I swear as it did, I could hear its steady tattoo sounding out your name.

By the time I reached our front door I was soaked and muddy and grudgingly undressed on the porch. You had seen me coming from a distance and met me at the door with a warm towel and laughter. Still damp I stepped through the door into our living room as you dried me; and as I felt you attending to me with your loving hands, I could smell the lemon-scented air from the kitchen as you baked for me.

Sitting in front of the hearth warming, I heard you singing from the next room; your voice was ascending in an almost mystic tone. Drawn to you, I took your hand as you sang of a small boat and hope and dreams and love that lived without limits and without end and thought of how we were reborn to a new life everyday. I realized the depth of what we are and understood why I am not afraid of the rain.

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It is cloudy and cool today, a perfect afternoon for a nap, so I did lay down for awhile but found I could not find sleep. Restlessness was not the problem. In fact, the truth of the matter is there was no problem. No; I just found myself doing inventory of sorts and I thought I should tell what I found in that process.

You have given me your body, people do that everyday, sometimes even if they don’t even like each other. No, you have given me your body in a special way though; as if it is mine not only to enjoy and covet, but to hold and own as my possession. Don’t get me wrong, I am appreciative of your body. It is fair, pristine, beautiful and perfect in every way and I love it as I love you; but it is not at the top of the list.

More importantly, I found that indeed you have given me your heart to possess. It is a fine heart too. Filled with love and tenderness, compassion and beauty, it is a rarity in today’s world of cynical minds. You do not know how many times that pure and perfect heart of yours has changed my day, forced me to be calm when I didn’t want to, just from watching you.

Many things of beauty I found when doing this inventory that kept me from going to sleep. Your soul holds many things that are precious and rare – love for your fellow man, sure-footed faith, tears for children you don’t even know, active sympathy for men and women who have seen the harder parts of life; the list goes on and on.

Most of all, however, I find that you have given me your love. You have not loaned it to me so that you can reclaim it at some future date. You do no withdraw it on my bad days when I don’t even love myself. You do not alter it by fad or fashion. No; you just love me and keep loving me. I hear people talk about eternity and what it means to them. I believe God has given us to each other’s keep for that duration, because when I inventory your love for me, it seem to have no indication of end.

I could not go to sleep without telling you this. Sometimes you ask me if I know you love me; I do. Today, this inventory has forced me to look more intently at that which I find. So let me say, I do know how much you love me; I am amazed.

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Sleep my loving and tender Sophia -

You were so sleepy last night, lying in my arms trying to stay awake, trying to tell me things about your day, trying to tell me your dreams, trying to tell me over and over how you love me. At times your voice was so sleepy I could barely make out the words, at times you were on the cusp of wakefulness and sleep, at times telling me to hurry or I would miss the bus, at times telling me of visions that were there before your waking eyes; but mostly telling me how much you love me.

Then you fell asleep in my arms, mumbling and muttering, saying “I love you” one last time like it might be the last time your lips could utter that sound or that my ears would be able to hear them. But my love, that can never be, you know that as well as I do; our words have been chiseled into the stone of Time itself, and though others might question them, we do not. My soul will pursue yours throughout forever’s forever and yours will pursue throughout the endlessness of eternity.

In a few minutes I will come lie down and even in sleep you will come to me as if you hear my voice in your very dreams. You will put your arm over my chest and rest your heart in my heart. Tonight, my head hurts, my back hurts, and sometimes my soul hurts; but my heart does not hurt, for it is in your care. You lavish me with such love that all temporal matters vanish like fog on a bright winter’s morning, troubles becoming even less than a memory.

So sleep now my love, sleep in the beauty of what our souls have created in this life; sleep in the purity of that holy conception. Sleep in the full clarity of Us. I love you.


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