It’s not the new beginning we had imagined.  You would have zoomed your last zoom, uploaded your last grades, flown to Iowa to turn in your university ID and loaned computer, and we would be retired, together retired, totally retired, free, free for the life we have chosen in Maine, free to do together whatever we want for as long as we want whenever we want — walking the Castine shore hunting pottery shards, paddling among guillemots and loons and harbor porpoises alongside Bare Island or McGlathery or Bartlett, browsing Dreamcatcher or Three Wishes or Goodwill seeking hidden treasures or no more than the pleasures of the browsing itself, pruning the potentillas and planting petunias and making pies of the rhubarb and wild blueberries, cutting dead cedars and hauling the limbs to the brush pile, painting decks and cleaning windows and organizing closets, reading by the fire and soaking in the hot tub and enjoying some porch time with crackers and cheddar and a riesling.

We will do all of that, I hope, I believe, but in the meanwhile a different kind of new beginning has been thrust upon us, unanticipated, unprepared, unwanted.  In a moment, one bizarre and baffling moment, everything changed.  You stepped, your foot failed to find its footing, you were down, your leg shattered and everything changed.  You will not be roaming the beaches, but cruising from bedroom to bathroom to living room on your knee scooter.  You will not be working in the woods, but looking out at them from the porch.  You will not be shopping the sales, but sending me out for groceries.  It will be me, not you, pruning the potentillas.  I will be your nurse instead of paddle mate.

It is not the new beginning we had imagined, but it is the new beginning we have.  And because we have it, because we share it, because I share this time with you, this time too is precious to me beyond words.  We will find treasure and delight, laughter and communion, new strength and new joy, even in this new beginning.