I’m still here

I wake up in the morning and start to cry once more.
“I can’t believe they’re gone.” I manage to choke out between sobs.
He rolls over and wraps his arms around me.
“I’m still here,” he says.
And I cry harder.

I look at him across the breakfast table, his ever-watchful eyes like a monitor  on my emotions.
“I feel like an orphan,” I say. “I know I’m old enough to be on my own, but I wasn’t ready for them to be gone.”
His clear blue eyes pierce into mine.
“You still have me,” he says.
“I know,” I say and I nod my head, “I do.”

I stop my typing and look at him sitting at his desk across the room from mine.
“I feel like I don’t have a family anymore.”
“I’m never going to leave you,” he replies.
“Promise?”

I face him across a table for two at Easter.
“I feel like a loser sitting in an Italian restaurant on Easter after all the years of Easter egg hunts and family dinners,” I say. “I don’t have a family to celebrate holidays with anymore.”
His blue eyes twinkle with just a slight crinkle in the corners.
“I like spending Easter here with you,” he says.
I smile in return. And I believe him.