2009 Winner: Mr. Dean Hovell

Dear Elaine,

Some have said the easiest thing in the world is to fall in love and the most difficult is to stay in love. The easier for me has been the staying.

We have traveled a long path together, and as we glance back we see the sharp turns and life stopping bumps.  We have experienced unequivocal love towards and from our children and life’s losses of family and friends.  We have been tested by others, and we have tested each other, and at the end of the road, where we stand today, we stand together.

My love for you is the essence of my being.  It has nothing to do with logic, it has nothing to do with common sense and it can not be defined, parsed or explained.  It just is what it is.  I wake each day just to see you.  Each breath is to share in a part of the breath you take.  I live in the same space, travel the same roads not out of necessity but out of a wrenching need to be close, to move forward only with you. 

Ours is a simple life unencumbered by the things that others fret.  We are not better people or living a more blessed life, we are after all, just us.  And that is the truth of our life together. There are no burdens we do not share and there are no joys we appreciate separately.  We share the beauty of acute light on a winter evening.  Yes, we see the shadows of that light, but we also see the bright, the texture and the colors of life. 

And that and that alone is why we love, because we have always seen life together.  Our lives are where we spend our time in love, and the random noise and crackling flashes of life have all paled in comparison to that love.

Sometimes it is just so easy, so perfect, peaceful, a love so simple words are superfluous to understanding. 
Those who have said the easiest thing in the world is to fall in love and the most difficult is to stay in love…have never been in love with you. 

My unequivocal love forever
Dean

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