THANK YOU / A LETTER TO MY HUSBAND

Thank you for walking into the the Evening Muse that fateful August night ten years ago, the night you’d originally picked to leave this world.

Thank you for being strong enough to trust in the musicians you met there after being disfellowshipped by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Thank you for allowing yourself to experience fellowship with those musicians.

Thank you for imagining that life could be different for you after losing everyone and everything you had ever known.

Thank you for bravely putting your broken heart out there in music and holding on long enough to cross paths with me.

Thank you for being so earnestly expressive in your music that I knew I would marry you from the moment I first saw you.

Thank you for sitting down beside me at your first Little District show and introducing yourself.

Thank you for telling me you loved me 3 days later & meaning it.

Thank you for being honest enough to tell me you were on your way out.

Thank you for holding on to me & letting me be your light in the dark.

Thank you for letting me take care of you even though you didn’t think you deserved it because you’d cheated on your first wife.

Thank you for believing me when I told you that you were better than that & would be transformed by unconditional love & forgiveness.

Thank you for letting that love & the power of forgiveness transform you.

Thank you for showing me that same love & forgiveness.

Thank you for listening to me when I told you to write what you know.

Thank you for telling your life story in songs in a way you never could conversationally.

Thank you for the beautiful chord charts & recordings - I’ll treasure them all the days of my life.

Thank you for showing me new things all the time these days that help me better understand your lyrics.

Thank you for giving of your time so freely and generously to me from the moment we met.

Thank you for never passing up an opportunity to help me.

Thank you for fixing things I didn’t even know were broken.

Thank you for having the patience of a saint with me even at my most aggravating.

Thank you for having the courage to truly love me after all you had been through.

Thank you for being the most loving boy I ever dated even though you were the most damaged.

Thank you for sleeping on an air mattress with me for 3 years & making it seem romantic by making me playlists of songs about air mattresses.

Thank you for marrying me on stage at the Visulite & letting me walk out to "Razzle Dazzle Rose".

Thank you for giving me the music festival wedding of my dreams.

Thank you for almost always letting me pick the set lists.

Thank you for shopping for new albums with me at the start of every road trip.

Thank you for opening every door I encountered for 10 years & always moving the car so that I wouldn’t have to step in puddles.

Thank you for always driving me around everywhere, especially to annoying places like the craft store across town & to get drinks with ice in the middle of the night.

Thank you for getting me out of the shower daily & always heating up my towels in the dryer - because this Epileptic girl sometimes get dizzy and because you were a king.

Thank you for making me dinner every night & always setting up my nighttime. Pillows fluffed, blankets untangled, aromatherapy spray spritzed, twinkle lights on.

Thank you for sharing your love of Star Wars with me & making me a timeline drawing to help me understand the order.

Thank you for making me laugh all the time, even in life’s most difficult moments and for teaching me how to laugh at myself.

Thank you for teasing me about silly things - you were right - I secretly loved that ridiculous voice you made when imitating me.

Thank you for loving all of my friends as your own.

Thank you for helping them move, talking them through relationship struggles & playing in bands with them.

Thank you for forgiving me for my daily hanger meltdowns & never ever shouting at me even when I shouted at you.

Thank you for making me feel like I could do anything & believing me when I told you could too.

Thank you for always putting my needs ahead of your own. In every way.

Thank you for telling me I was beautiful every single day for a decade. You made me feel like I was.

Thank you for being brave enough to dream about having babies with me even after you’d lost a baby of your own.

Thank you for wanting to want that with me. Because you loved me.

Thank you for giving me a larger family than I could have ever imagined through music, the very best way you knew how.

Thank you for giving me Bowie & always calling him our son.

Thank you waking up slowly with me & Bowie every morning - those are my favorite memories & what I miss the most.

Thank you for investing so much of your time in him & teaching him how to do all those tricks.

Thank you for sending my mom pictures of him every day when I was out of town without being asked.

Thank you for secretly telling my dad how I’m doing when I didn’t want to talk to him.

Thank you for letting my brother live with us several times, moving him here from Asheville on your only day off in a month & not once complaining about it.

Thank you for teaching me self defense so I wouldn’t ever feel unsafe when you found out that I was raped the year before I met you.

Thank you for creating the account “1101 Spa Exposed” on Twitter & getting the creepy spa shut down after I said that I was freaked out by it.

Thank you for always turning on the lights in the house when we first got home so that I wouldn’t be afraid of an intruder.

Thank you for taking my most treasured values, unconditional love & forgiveness, and applying them to everything and everyone.

Thank you for investing so much of your heart into the lives of so many people - the enormous love you didn’t know how to show your surviving son you poured into hundreds of families in the only way you knew how, music.

Thank you for always sharing everything you had. You were the most selfless person I've ever known.

Thank you for always anticipating my needs. You always knew what I needed before I even asked.

Thank you for never saying an unkind word about anyone.

Thank you for believing in people endlessly.

Thank you for being a friend to those in need.

Thank you for showing me how to do the same.

Thank you for being my best friend. My champion.

Thank you for showing me just about everything I know about how to be a good human.

Thank you for doing the best you could even though you were struggling with a very deep depression few can understand.

Thank you for loving me so well that I’d do it all again. I miss you beyond measure.

Thank you for everything.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

You are the brightest star in my sky.

I love you & I forgive you.

I wish we’d had more time.

• Originally published via Facebook on November 9, 2017