Because I Love You

I feel like he is in me and I am in him. Where I am he is also. We have two different bodies but they are not separated. They are joined, intertwined in a way unseen by the naked eye.  I wrote these thoughts about José in our AC period, "after the curb." You see, I thwarted José's advances when we initially met in 2003. I kicked him to the curb, as he would later describe in a poem. It wasn't until we met again in 2005 that I began to open up to getting to know him, to letting him into my life. By 2007, I discovered what love was, what being in love with José felt like, and this is what I wrote in my journal at that time. We feel each other without touching, so when we touch it’s like returning to where we once began, where our lives began, like coming home again, like being held in my mother’s arms again. Being touched and held by you is where I relax and begin a new: a new me, a new breath, a new beginning. When you touch me, I feel your love enter my body. Love tr...

Whatever you want me to be, I’ll be. Wherever you want me to go, I’ll go. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do. It’s my desire to be……… Just what you want me to be. It’s my desire, my desire.  It’s my desire, to be……. Just what you want me to be.   Those were the words of a song I sang as a kid in Antioch Baptist Church’s youth choir in the 1970’s. Growing up, church songs were the only songs to which I knew all the words. Sometimes I would sing along with the radio to artists like, The Commodores, Teddy Pendergrass, Peabo Bryson, or Earth Wind and Fire, but I mimicked the words I didn’t know. Was it, “Love has found a way in my heart tonight, or “Love has a holiday in my heart tonight,” in Love’s Holiday by Earth Wind? Was Lionel Richie of the Commodores singing, “I’m easy like Sunday morning,” or, “I’m leaving next Sunday morning?” So when I auditioned as a young adult for a community theatre production of Dream Girls, my audition song was a gospel song from church. I don’t r...

“Gone were the weak knees and legs getting ready to crumble, restored were my strong runner legs, dancer body, doing what I do best: rejoice, dance, run, hop, skip and jump. It was hallelujah time! It was praising God time! Between 7-8am EST Tuesday May 19, 2020, I texted Reggie asking how the day had gone, knowing it was about 8-9pm in Japan. His reply, “Mom and baby are stable and doing fine. I’m fine too,” was a normal reply regarding updates on his wife’s condition, our daughter Ana. On Sunday, Reggie told us Ana was in the US Naval Hospital in Okinawa Japan due to early dilation (3cm), our prayers were for her to go full term; she was in her sixth month. When I spoke with Ana Monday night EST/Tuesday morning JPN, she expected to be discharged that day or the next but all was well; but the next information I read in Reggie’s text took my breath away: Hensley Courtland Thomas born Tuesday May 19 Time: 1613 or 4:13PM JPN, 3:13AM EST Length: 13.8 inches Weight: 2lbs 5ozs Gestation: 26...