Ed and I wrote little love notes to each other. I hid them in his laptop case or pockets. He tucked them into my handbag or under my pillow.
The notes said things like “I love you” or “Thinking of you. When we wrote letters on paper or email, we often ended by writing “I love you to the moon and back.”
Around this time last year, a few months after Ed died, a package arrived. When I opened it, there was an 8-inch moon inside. It didn’t have a packing slip. Strange. I Googled the return address. It came up as a possible PayPal scam. I checked my PayPal. There were no suspicious charges. I looked up the tracking number. It didn’t exist. Hmm?
I plugged the moon in and it glowed. I shivered when the words “I love you to the moon and back” appeared. The only one who knew about us signing letters like this was Ed.
This February, I decided to write this blog about my mystery moon. I wanted to take a picture of it for the blog. I had not charged the moon or turned it on in months. I picked it up to pose it. It surprised me by turning on. Then for the first time, I noticed something on the back. I couldn’t believe my eyes! How could I have missed it? It was an embossed image of Ed and me dancing. I almost dropped the moon. I slid onto the floor to keep myself from fainting. I cried softly as I felt my heart fill with deep love and a powerful longing to be held by Ed.
Ed, I still love you to the moon and back and now into the stars.
Leonor “Leo” and Ed Rivera were members of the local Worldwide Marriage Encounter community for 32 of their 34 years of marriage until Ed unexpectedly died of a genetic heart defect on Aug. 1, 2020. To read more of Leo and Ed’s blogs, visit https://catholiccourier.com/viewpoints/blogs/to-have-and-to-hold.
