**This is the last in a series of essays that have dealt with my evolving thoughts, feelings, assessments, and experiences with the concept of love and loving again after the loss of Kara and the life I had at the time. It’s an ever-unfolding journey that I’ve been writing about in one way or another from the beginning.**
Part 5: And the Sun Rose
November 2023
She emerged naked from the dark bedroom I had left moments before, and into the barely lit space where I was attempting to awaken. Moving with enviable ease and grace toward me, she made brief but warm and purposeful eye contact on her way to the kitchen. I was clearing cobwebs and stretching while staring unflinchingly and without abashment through the dining room and into the kitchen where she was beginning the process of making coffee.
She walked back into the dining room to fetch spring water from a container on the table. And did so as if a thousand eyes were upon her. Or mine alone. Or none at all. She was now illuminated by a predawn glow along with the warmth of a kitchen bulb intent upon casting light and shadow from a perfect angle. Because of this, what was already the world’s most alluring skin tone had now somehow been elevated to an even more appealing hue of browned butter swirled with flaxen honey, and my breath took a sudden pause.
Her bed-tossed hair ended at the crest of strong, feminine shoulders in command of a contouring torso hellbent on arriving at a waist all but tailored to the shape and size of my eager hands. Beneath that was the sort of shapely lower body that inspires art and occasionally moves men to battle.
As she drew the water, her back arched ever so slightly, which instantly elicited remembrances of the previous evening to play out before my mind’s eye. This woman, in that moment and in that place, was the most beautiful female form I had ever witnessed.
And the sun Rose.
Love After Life Part 1: Never Again
Love After Life Part 2: Maybe Someday
Love After Life Part 3: What’s Happening Here?
Love After Life Part 4: It’s Begun Again