Somewhere in the middle of these long haul work details Rob takes on, sometime after we quit sharing the breadth of our individual life details over the phone every night…when we are both so tired at the end of our work days that we sleepily utter our “I love yous” over the phone and then tell each other nothing is new, even if there are life details worth sharing — because the distance feels so huge and insurmountable and we cannot fit life into words; it feels too big.  When that time comes (and it always comes, every fire season), I often fret that we aren’t going to know each other anymore when he comes home.

But we always do.  We pick up right where we left off.  Sometimes I have to have a good cry in his arms and let my walls fall down, first, but we always make it and for some reason, it always feels a little lucky.  I don’t think just anybody could do this, but we do, and when the apartness threatens to dismantle us at times, we beat it off with a stick, slap it into the ground and grind it up under a boot heel.  We try.  We try our hardest.  Always.

When it comes down to it, here’s the honest truth: the homecoming is always such a piece of heaven, despite the hell of being apart.