HOW DO I LOVE THEE? …, Love Email, 4

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HOW DO I LOVE THEE? …
Love Email, 4


Dear Etta,

I look at my desk calendar, and see that last week at this time I was eagerly awaiting your return from abroad. Tonight I am alone again. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy my empty bed. I will always remember that last night together at the airport Ramada. I slept well, so especially content and warmed all over by your flesh, by our lying there the night side by side. And when you awoke me ten minutes early that I might still further enjoy the pleasure of your company, I felt as though I had slipped through earthly constraints and entered into a realm that heathen people imagined as paradisiacal. I love the time I had spent with you from that first rainy Thursday date to that final parting kiss at departure gate security.


Now the prospect of your upcoming surgery, it moves to the front of my thoughts. I only wish that whatever the pain or discomfort, I wish that it might be visited upon me instead of you.

Although this Victorian era poems starts trite, a wee-bit ho hum, I believe it adequately describes the nature of love, one person for another.

How Do I Love Thee?
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Good night, Darling. In a few hours I'm traveling for business. After I check the vendors at those Western New Jersey markets, I shall start the search for a new house or apartment.

Yours, S.