The Best Part

There are secrets- small ones- that I've kept from a couple people, but tonight feels like a good night to let them go.

The picture above is one I've had for a year or two. It was something my mom and I found during one of my visits to Oregon. It was such a sweet, little saying, and we both sighed over it. I think she ending up sneaking to the cash register with it and giving it to me later that day.

But what Sky didn't know is that my mom waited to send me the sign until things were good again. When she got that sign, my marriage was upside down and inside out. It felt beyond repair and beyond recognition. There were few shreds left. When things settled and she did send it to me, it all took another turn not much longer after that. I wrapped up the frame, put it in a box, and shut the closet door...until we moved, that is.

I rediscovered it among all the bubblewrap, and decided it needed a place here.

And what my mom didn't know is what Sky said to me that night, as we were putting up a stack of photos along a bookshelf. As he arranged a photo of us dressed up for the ball, a folded flag from his service in Afghanistan, and that little frame, he commented on how they fit so well together. I blinked and looked at the three, searching for something they had in common, and finally assuming he meant the stars in them all. He shook his head. He reminded me of the way we met- how he was my brother's roommate during that deployment, and had it not been for that deployment, we'd likely have never known each other.

"No," he corrected me, adjusting the frame a little. "When they ask me about the best part of the military, I can say it was you."

Sometimes, things are worth the wait.