I Will Always Love You

This song still makes me cry — eight years after the time I heard it as my wife and I began “separating our things” after 16 years of marriage.

Our upstairs had two bedrooms with a bathroom in between with doors opening to each room so you could look right through. (I’m sure there’s some name for this, like a Hollywood bath, or something.)

I was in one bedroom packing up some of the things I would take — careful to put all the photo albums into her boxes (I knew they were more important to her than they were to me, and figured I could borrow them from her anytime that I might want to look at them).

We had the radio playing and this song came on. We looked up, across the bathroom hallway, at each other, and the tears started rolling down our cheeks.

How she has remained my friend and we’ve been so close ever since is a precious gift in my life and when I hear the words to this song, I hear her singing them to me, at that moment, in all her generosity.

I Will Always Love You

You, darling, I love you.
Ooh, I’ll always, I’ll always love you.

I thank God for the tears. It reminds me that the love we shared was so real. No wonder we’re still so close.