I wish

My dear, I've seen so many of my wishes come true, but of all of them, I wish there had been more of you. 

I wish it had been me holding you as you held our babies. I wish I could have been there for you when you brought them home, gave you a shoulder to rest on, let you fall asleep while I watched them. I wished it had been me. When you were so tired and so hurt, maybe for a moment you wished I had been there too. When your baby girl and your husband were the most important people in your life, and they were being pulled away from you, I wish I could have held you together. 

Your love, your patience, your tenacity pulled you through. I wish it had been me instead. I wish you didn't have to love that way, that you could have loved naturally and without fear, without wondering, without missing any of the pieces. I would have held all the pieces together for you. I wouldn't have asked you to do the same for me. 

I see you there, with your baby in your arms, and I wish you had been mine. I wish you would have looked at me with those eyes, even if it was just one time. I never would have forgotten. 

I would have loved with a love you read about in books and see in movies but never see in real life. I promise you I would have cherished you, and you wouldn't have wondered once where I was or who I was with because I was always with you, stuck inside your heart. And you would have been in mine. 

Yes, this is a goodbye. It's a goodbye to what could have been. We would have been so good to each other. I would have held you in my hands and you would have felt my heart beating through them. You would have understood without a word being said I would die for you, and, perhaps more telling, I would live for you. 

I wish it would have been me to make the first move, to make those words come out of my mouth to make you mine. I wish it would have been me to meet you at that altar. I wish it would have been then and not now. Oh, but those years are gone and so many good things that could have been weren't, and so many bad things that shouldn't have been were. 

Most of all, I wish I could hold you now and make even a sliver of your pain go away. And I hope you know you meant more to me than any woman I've ever known. You were always the one for me, and I wish I had known sooner. I wish I hadn't run out of wishes so soon because I will always wish for you.