I finally am able to say it is doable. Happy anniversary, my sweet Lass. I am taking you home. Not to some tent or a shanty elsewhere in the world that smells worse than the streets surrounding it. I am taking you home once and for all to Iowa. I want to see you at sunrise in the fields we tend with our bare hands. I want to smell the day long sunlight in your hair when your head finally rests beside mine in the pillow we share. I want to grow old with you there. Our family surrounding us with their own blessings of life and God’s work in place.
I have shared the world with you and you with the world. So much great work has been done in our travels for those who we were blessed to encounter. We have been given far more than would have been fair to ask for. The power of his love reminds us so long as we follow his plan for us we shall never be without. Any doubts ask Oliver. He appears excited about the prospect of climbing the corn and having a barn to explore. Pretty cute how his little hands fold up in prayer isn’t it? He has proven me impatient a year ago. Can’t imagine a day without him or you.
Accept my hand and let’s go home. We have been a part of so many wonderful families and hearts. None of this will be forgotten. It helped mold us into who we are, what we share. Now is the time. God is calling us to return home and create with his love a family of our own.
Is it because, two years ago, I told you I might be ready for children in three years? We are going home just in time for you to build us a house. And by the time the house is built and we are settled, it will have been three years.
We will go home, my love, and we will make it ours. And our work will not stop just because we have stopped moving. I cannot tell you how glad I am that we are going. I cannot wait to visit the place where you grew up, to meet the people who helped to shape you. Iowa sounds like heaven compared to the greyness of Ballynure. Sometimes I miss the rolling green hills, and I hope I can convince Father Byrne to relocate, too. His talent is wasted there. But then, he saved me when I could have been consumed by the devil, and perhaps he is destined to stay where he is so that he may save other young girls from similar fates. Without him, without you, I might have been convinced that the devil lived in all men. But you are filled with light and love, and I could never see the devil in you. He would not dare.
Good grace and good hearts are required in all corners of the world and we will do our part to make our home a better place. Not just for you and me, but for all we encounter.
You couldn’t have told me soon enough what our plans were. Last night, while you were sleeping, I woke in a sweat. I’m fine now, and I wonder whether I dreamed the whole thing. I got up and I went outside, the wind was warm and thick and heavy with humidity. I miss the cold winters, my love. Where I have been otherwise accepting of the religions of others there is something in this place that makes my skin crawl. The thought of home, of a warmth in Iowa that doesn’t threaten to choke me alive, is the best anniversary present you could give me.
Always faithful,
Lasair
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December 15, 2016- Garrison, Iowa, USA
You are still asleep and it feels like the night before Christmas, even though Christmas is still ten days away. The house that we have built is perfect, and it is only a stone’s throw from the church. We are so blessed with what we have been given here, and that we are alive in this century that is so accepting of who and what we are. The shop we keep is modest, at best, but we help those in need just as we always said we would. Everything we have learned these past five years has led to this -- the many friends that we have made all over the world and the knowledge they are able to send us because of the technology that we have access to.
You are so smart, my love, and yet you keep it to yourself. You do not like to be celebrated for your gifts. You are modest, just as God intended. You are so selfless that you cannot even see it in yourself. The tinctures and remedies that you create are natural remedies that combat the drugs that the pharmaceutical companies shove down people’s throats. They are greedy pigs, asking for too much money. Their game is not to help the sick, but to reap the rewards of illness. It would not surprise me if they were the cause of half the illnesses in this world, only so that they could win.
We offer a solution, as modest as it may be. It was your idea to charge only a fraction more than the cost. We are accustomed to living modestly, and we do not need much. We need only each other. The corn that we grow is enough to keep us afloat and, my love, you were right. There is nothing I love more than to be out in those fields, and Oliver is right at home. The sun sinks into my skin and it does not burn me like it should. It is a gentle caress, a whisper telling me that I am home.
I have stolen this first entry, dearest Elsi, because I wanted to surprise you. It has been three years, my love, and those three years have given me the maturity that I so sorely missed. I hope that you are not mad -- I am sure that I remember the night that it happened. Do you? I couldn’t sleep and I woke you. Do you remember? You were so adorable with your hair a mess and your eyes swollen with sleep. I didn’t give you a choice, and your response to my touch was your consent. It didn’t matter that the weather had grown cold and I was naked as the day I was born, by the time we were done the sheets were sodden. And it didn’t take long, then, for us both to fall asleep. Did you notice? We didn’t use protection. I did it on purpose.
You are going to be a father, my love. You will be a good father. You will be a great father. And I hope that we have a boy, and he looks just like you.
I have stared at this blank space where my words should be to mark this moment and I hope you forgive me. I love you, Lasair. You are carrying our child! I have lost the ability to express it in words. I can only do as you have asked. I am going to find you and I am never going to let you go. God has blessed us both and I vow to be worthy of his blessing. I will have enough to pour into the space below next year.
