When I was young, when people asked what Aaron and I were, I would tell them, “It’s complicated”. But it really wasn’t. It was a simple, beautiful thing we had. He was my best friend but he was also so much more than that. He was my world. Aaron and I met one Sunday a few lifetimes ago. His father was unloading the moving van, as tiny, brunette Aaron ran circles around his legs, begging to help. Aaron was being of no help to his father. Meanwhile I stood watching this all unfold, in my faded church dress, then with my terrible bob haircut, arms crossed against my chest. I remember Aaron turning around and giving me a funny look. He slowly walked up to me, and stopped short inches from my face. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “I live here, thank you very much. And I am just observing,” I replied calmly. Aaron scratched his head. “What’s ‘observing’?”. Five-year-old me was baffled by this obnoxious, accusing little boy who didn't know what “observing meant”. But five-year-old me was also very precocious and stuck-up, so I should’ve not been so quick to judge. “What’s your name?” I asked him skeptically. “Aaron May,” he mumbled. “If you were even bothered to know, my name is Willa Foley,” I said to him. Aaron stared down at me. He was always at least three inches taller than me. Back in those days, no one my age liked me. No one even bothered to talk to me. I mean, it was understandable, but it still hurt. Aaron always said from the minute he saw me, he knew we were going to be part of each other’s lives. I’m not sure I believed him at first, given our odd and slightly cold first interaction, but as I’ve reflected on this moment more times, the more I realized though we seemed annoyed by each other on the outside, we both had this immediate adoration for each other on the inside. In his driveway, one warm Sunday afternoon, two five year olds met by chance. And their lives would never be the same again.

Aaron and I grew up together. Aaron grew from a small, clingy little boy into a strong, tall, athletic, football-playing man. I stayed a little nerdy, but I got contact lenses, started styling my hair, and wore trendy clothing. Even as we grew older, we still came over to each other’s houses when something even remotely interesting happened. We still played WII Sports on Sunday nights, watched “Napoleon Dynamite” together, baked brownies, played board games, and did everything we loved to do as kids. We weren’t officially “dating” to the high school population, but when we would binge “Seinfeld” we would cuddle, my head tucked in the spot beneath his shoulder, and his big strong arms holding me tight, never letting me go. I remember how he’d plant little kisses on my neck, wordlessly telling me how much he loved me. We definitely were a thing. We always denied it to anyone who asked, however. We were both very private and agreed we didn’t need anyone to know about us. I remember one particular night fondly. Aaron had just had a big football game and with that came a big win. Aaron looked for me up in the stands. I went down to meet him. “Good game, lunkhead,” I teased him. He gave me a small smile and then walked away. I ran back over to him. “Hey! What’s wrong?” He sat down on the bench in front of the field. “It’s just, you know, the anniversary. It’s hitting me hard this year,” he said, his deep voice low and quiet. My mother had died a few years prior. Aaron's parents divorced when he was really little, and he never had a mother, so he became very close with my mother. So close, that apparently her anniversary of death was as hard on him as it was on me. “Me too,” I whispered, “Why don’t you come over?” He nodded and said he’d have to tell his coach he wasn’t going to make it to the celebratory dinner. “Why do all the people we love go away?” he asked me on the way to my house. “That’s just the way it is,” I breathed, “Life on Earth is finite.” He swallowed. “Do you think your Mom can see us now?” he asked. I took his hand. “I think she’s looking down on us and watching out for us. I think she’s become a little part of both of us.” Once we got to my house we decided to go sit in the old tree house we built when we were eight. I sat between his legs, his arms wrapped around me, both of us watching the stars. We knew my Mom was a star up there, smiling down on us. I turned around and looked up at Aaron. My Aaron. The scrawny little kid who turned into this beautiful boy that was all mine, always. I put a hand on his cheek and stroked it. He did the same to me. I leaned into his ear and whispered, “I love you so much.” He leaned into my ear and whispered, “I’ll love you forever, Willa. More than you’ll ever know.” Then I took his face in both my hands and kissed him, hard. His lips were soft like they always were, and his hair was still a little oily from the football game. I started to play with his hair, and he pulled me onto his lap and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He broke away from kissing and said, “Willa, you’ll always be my girl. You know that right?” I looked up at him. “Aaron, you’ve always been my boy. And you always will be. You're my person, and I’m yours.” He smiled, and we went back to kissing. And that was the night we realized just how much we loved each other.

After Aaron and I had been married for four years, we decided we wanted kids. We were in a good financial spot. Aaron had had a stable, high-paying job that allowed me to be a stay-at-home (soon to be) mom. Aaron was so excited to be a Dad. He had always wanted a daughter so badly. On one April 30th, I gave birth to our first child, a girl. I was over the moon about our baby girl, but that still paled in comparison to how much in love Aaron was with our daughter. He named her Cassandra-Rose and was infatuated with her the moment the doctor handed her to him. As she grew up, Aaron spoiled his “Little Cassie” rotten. He played princess with her whenever she asked, made her special quesadillas, and told her jokes just to hear her adorable little laugh. Cassandra-Rose was just like her father. Kind-hearted, caring, sweet, and considerate. She also looked exactly like Aaron, with his little tiny nose, freckles, and big, loving eyes. The only things she inherited from me was her blonde hair and bad vision. When Cassandra-Rose was two, Aaron and I found out we were expecting twin boys. Cassandra-Rose was so excited to have little brothers. And Aaron couldn’t wait to have two little boys to teach football to. On another April 30th, our twin boys were born. I named one of them Paul after my great-grandfather. Aaron named the other one Ryan because he had always wanted a little boy with that name. Both of our boys grew up to be strong and athletic like Aaron. Ryan became the #1 quarterback in the county when he got to high school, and Paul became a star pitcher for baseball. Cassandra-Rose became more like me as she grew up. She did well in school and got into MIT to become a scientist. As we watched our kids grow up, Aaron would always remember to whisper to me “I’ll love you forever”. When I had just turned fifty-two, Aaron had just retired from thirty years at his job, Paul and Ryan had just started their senior year of high school, and Cassandra-Rose her junior year of college, my world came crashing down. Aaron had a heart attack when he was out on one of his daily runs. He died instantly.

My whole world was shattered. He was everything. He was the love of my life. I could barely be with our children and not burst into tears. Everytime I looked in their faces, I saw Aaron. His contagious smile. His sense of humor. His lust for life. His bravery. His love for me and our kids. It was too hard. I loved him more than life itself. There were several days where it felt Cassandra-Rose and I would hold onto each other and cry for hours. I grieved for days. Weeks. Months. Years. On the fifth anniversary of Aaron’s death, my boys were helping me clean out the garage. Paul found a dusty old box that I had never seen before with a carving of my name on it. I took it into my room, and decided not to open it for the time being. I could tell it had been something Aaron had made years ago, something he wanted to give to me. It sat on my shelf for several months. Eventually, I had the bravery to open it. I wiped off a thick layer of dust to see the contents. There was an old picture of us, around the time we had met, taken with a polaroid camera. An awful drawing I had made when we played Pictionary as kids. A funny note he had passed me in seventh grade. A ticket stub of a movie we had seen when we were fifteen. A letter he had sent me when we were at different colleges. A napkin from our wedding. A family picture of us and our three kids when they were little. A little craft Ryan had made me in preschool. A picture of us at Cassandra-Rose’s graduation from high school. And a note. As I choked back tears, I flipped it over. It read: Willa. Thank you for spending your whole life with me. I love you. Infinite. I smiled for the first time in months. My Aaron. He was up there in the stars, in Heaven, with my Mom. And someday, I’d be with him again. Infinitely.

The End