Dear Dragon,

You died on a night of a cold, full moon. I go out every night of the full moon and take a photograph for you, no, for me. And I say that rhyme, “I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me.” It doesn’t help me feel any closer to you but it helps me feel closer to the moon. You didn’t know this but the moon, that night, turned from the color of sherbet to a shocked silver. Even she couldn’t believe the Dragon had passed.

The moon and I, we are two who have stood in the shadows all our lives and only get noticed when a light shines on us. You shined on me and for a brief time, I was important. You showed me my worth. I always knew that, taking the words from Wordsworth’s poem, if I “ceased to be,” it would make a difference in your life.

But it was you who "ceased to be and oh, the difference to me.”

I know it hasn’t been long since I last talked to you, maybe ten minutes, but this time it’s different. I’m writing a letter for the world to see, for the world to know what you meant to me.

You found me because you knew the shadows like the back of your hand. I was working my way through the ruins of my life after leaving an abusive husband. I was in the shadows so I wouldn’t be seen, but you knew all along I did it so I couldn’t be easily detected. You saw all my little tricks for survival. You knew how haunted I was. And hunted.

If I was going to try the crap shoot of love again, I had wanted a dragon. It had been my experience that in dealing with knights in shining armor, one ran the risk of them being able to be bought, or they were inflexible with that pesky code of honor thing, or too flexible. Honor has a razor’s edge that one has to walk though few realize is there. You have to know how to read the situation so you know which side to leap towards. And yes, sometimes one has to leap towards the darker side, make verbal promises that they have every intention of keeping. Civilians don’t have to face those decisions. That’s what dragons are for. You had to face them all the time to the point that it had become part of the character.

You, my love, were a dragon, The Dragon, a survivor of the Cold War. Your moods ranged from delighted to deadly. Your intelligence came from both roads, academics and your experience in moving through and dealing with what hides inside the darker places on this earth. As a Marine with particular skills, you were sent to handle the evil that thrives in those places. And as we all know, evil has it’s own brand of intelligence. You knew how to look in the abyss and were fully aware that the abyss looked back at you. As the Marine saying goes, you smiled back.

I wanted a man, a dragon, like you in my life. I had escaped from a banal evil that no one recognized. Only a handful of people in the world knew what my first husband was capable of. None of us could do anything about it. I had lived behind enemy lines for almost twenty years and had finally found an avenue of escape. But it came with a heavy price. Lord, God, the price I paid was almost overwhelming. Destruction of property, a couple of broken bones, stripped of any means to feed my children, and a fear so deep it was part of who I was was all that was left of me when he’d finished venting his rage. But you found me padding softly in the edge of the darkness and saw a woman who had no idea there was a reason for her existence. You moved up and around to stand in front of my children and me.

You were a dragon with huge shoulders and power hands. Your legs were thick with iron and your weight was well placed and ready to fight. With hands fisting at your sides and a blackness settling in your eyes, you faced my demon and miracle of miracles, he flinched. The demon could not hurt us anymore and the funny thing was you never laid a hand on him. Bullies fall in the presence of real power.

Then you turned back to us and bowed your head in shame that we had to see what you felt you were. But all we had seen was the truth. We saw that you were capable of forcing evil aside. Instead of disgust, you saw in our eyes hope for a future without pain, you saw love and respect for you and for your control over your power, and yes, you saw our awe of you. No one had been willing to fight for us.

And we showed you the chance for the dragon to have a home of his own.

I don’t know who took whom in but we became a family. I adored you above all others. I still adore you above all else. There can be no others. You were too much of everything. How can anyone sit in your spot? How can anyone walk your walk? How can I allow anyone to hold my hand? There would be no familiar scars covering them in a lattice of war stories? I would not feel the callus from the innumerable fights you survived. My hand would not be swallowed up inside the one that offered me such comfort, showed me such gentleness, and gave me such love.

I want to tell you what you already know. That I think you are the most handsome man there ever was or will be, to me. You are a hunk. I know. It’s cliché but you are. You would blush at all the sneak peeks I would take of you. You would smile a shy smile at the idea that I didn’t think you’d notice. I snuck pictures of you hoping you wouldn't see and shake your head at my hero worship. And now I’m glad I did take all those photographs because you as a physical presence are gone. I look at all my photos of you and sigh, sometimes cry, but never regret the time we spent together.

I will not want you to know what has happened since you died. I do not want you to know that your ex-wife screamed at me over the phone, demanding your ashes before your death certificate was signed. I would not want you to have looked down and seen that your twenty-four year-old son did not come to your funeral. He, his mother, and that side of your family loudly and publically boycotted your funeral. They did it the day of the funeral. They did it because they did not want the funeral you had said you wanted. They had wanted something far different than you did. Your wish was for a small service. That is what I arranged. You had not wanted to be interred in Arlington National Cemetery with all the pomp of the Marine you had been flashing all the medals you had earned. You wanted to be cremated and have a few heartfelt words spoken about you. That is what I did for you. Your ex-wife and son held up the funeral and then stood us up. She had it announced by the preacher that I had done it wrong and that they were refusing to come.  A pain ripped through me that is now a large scar for the pain I know you would feel, if you knew.

But you don’t, I pray. Or if you do, there is only compassion and sympathy in you that protects your feelings like a soft quilt protects you from any cold. You will know better than me that your son will one day regret his actions on that day. You will know when he got his part of your ashes that demanding I meet him and his mother in the parking lot of a grocery store to “divvy” you up was not the sacred way to handle the remains of a dragon, of you.  One day, maybe, he will open his eyes and see what he threw away with both hands.

I hope you are protected from that knowledge or at least above that knowledge hurting you. I want you to be above sorrow now. I worked so hard to show you how wonderful I think you are. I held you at night when the nightmares threatened to drown you. I spoke soft words of deep, unconditional love to you when memories of all those times hit you. I let you see my vulnerability, of how very much I worshiped the ground you tread on so that you would believe me when I said, “You are the most wonderful man I have ever known, or ever will know.”

I want to tell you of the little things I do like sign in and play your name on Pogo so that you get all the high scores when I can’t sleep due to my longing for you. I want you to know that I ache for you. I want you to know that sometimes old doubts and fears rise up and threaten my grasp on the knowledge that you loved me. The knife of those worries can cut me in two. But then I look at one of my photos of you, look into your eyes that were looking at me and I see that love you had for me.  It has to be enough because it is all that I have left.

I"m told that I need to let go of you, try to get on with my life.  I can't understand why.  Those people saying that don't understand me.  You are The Dragon, and you died.  Death isn’t like holding onto a balloon or a ski rope.  Holding on to a loved one who died cannot be compared to anything so superficial.  I can't let go because I can't.  Our life together was so rich with love, so strong with our awe of each other that even if I tried, it won’t let me go.  You are in my heart for all time.  "If surely two were one than we....."

I was a broken woman in the shadows and you found me. You saw something in me that I never could. And never will again. But I have the memory of believing in it once.

I have the memory of you.

So once every 28 days, I go outside at the rise of the full moon, and I take her photograph. We’re alone in the universe, she and I; two lonely women who never had their own light. My light is gone forever so I look to her to remember me. I am standing in the only light left to me, reflected light from a borrowed source that would otherwise be dark too.

One last thing, Dragon, dear. I want you to know that I will love you forever, “until the sun grows cold and the stars grow old.” Undying love, your name on my last breath.

~ your wife