Dear Hugh,
So many years ago at this time I had a secret, I was watching my son Scotty graduate in 2003 and what a lovely night it was. I was extra happy in all the pictures because I knew that you and I would go quietly to my church and marry with NO fanfare!!! I was so thankful that you were just like me, in that you wanted it just simple, you and I and my precious pastor Ronald Ball. We would slip away in the morning and by days end I would be Mrs. Hugh F Smith. Of course the F stood for nothing but that is another story. I also used every opportunity to tell people that I was Mrs. Hugh F Smith, and I still do.
Tomorrow is our anniversary date and I will spend it seeing my fave author with Erica and will celebrate the day and miss you but I will mostly be GRATEFUL!!!! I still find that the more I am grateful for the less time I have for anything else.
As I was thinking about you tonight, I thought about how we loved words!! When we started dating in March of 99, much of our courtship…. ha, my mamas word for it, was spent with you being in Nashville. You were selling your family home and we spoke on the phone and ran up huge bills back before unlimited!!! But we mostly wrote letters, lots of letters, cards and many e-mails. You know how I love words and what they do to me. I glimpsed at a few of them this week, but could only glimpse, I am not that strong yet.
You were an amazing writer!!! You were so dang funny. I love funny, I still do. I love slightly irreverent and honest and colorful and you were all of these. You had the most beautiful way of saying things. And you were so very honest!!!! I had to get used to that part but I did because I knew if. you said it, it was real and it could be depended on.
As I was speaking to you on one of our long conversations on the phone, I could hear the birds in the back ground and that sound to this day stirs me. I go back to that time and I remember that you told me your favorite word was zephyr…. a soft gentle breeze. I think that is what you were in my life, a soft gently breeze. Calm, collected, soft, tender and a comfort. So the sound of the birds and the feel of the breeze that was my life with you.
I got to see your precious son today!!!! He is so like you in his kindness and his love for those babies!!! He plays with them with the softest of heart. They adore him, I do too!!!! You know without me telling you that they surfed and there was some Fun Land involved and lots of The Claw!!!! Pretty soon Paul will roll in too. I am so thankful for them because I get to see you in both of them. They are brilliant, thoughtful and precious!!!! I know how you loved to talk about them, so I will carry that on for you. They are worth talking about and celebrating.
I better get some shut eye so that I am ready for tomorrow. Tonight I go to bed missing you but knowing that I had such a lovely sweet gift of the gentle and soft breeze of my life with you!!!!
with the greatest of love and gratitude,
Your adoring wife of Hugh F. Smith
ps. When we went to Epcot to the Flower and Garden show it was really tough on Carl, it did not seem right, the flowers even seemed to have missed you.
pss. Piper is still full tilt!!!