I don’t remember that moment. The two of us walking in an aspen grove, your arm around my shoulders my head against your waist. A tender moment caught on camera. A mother and child. I lost that mother years ago. Was it beneath those same trees, now big and strong or was it in pieces, blowing away one by one like leaves off those same trees? Perhaps her spirit is in that grove now floating beneath whispering golden leaves in the fall. Do those trees remember that moment shared between a mother and daughter? Was it real? Was love there in that moment? Yes, once our spirits touched. Once I saw you as my protector, my sanctuary. I felt so safe in your arms long long ago. What changed? And where is that mom now, the one embracing me in the woods? I am sure she would tell me I was doing the right thing. If I were to show her the future – that woman in that photo – and what she would become, how she would talk to her treasured children, she would tell me to run. To stop her from hurting us. To walk away. And so I do. For me. For her. For us. One day we will meet again and embrace in love free of fear, free of doubt. And on that day that mother will say to me – for the first time that I can remember – I love you. And there will be no strings attached to those words, no guilt dripping off of them. Just those three words. Crystal clear and pure. I love you, she will say. We will be reunited beneath those trees and they will spin their leaves in the wind beneath a brilliant blue sky. “Yes,” they will whisper. “Yes.”