I was using it as bookmark, one of my apple paintings. Lying in the hammock, he stood over me and picked it up from my chest. “You did that,” he said. I smiled with eyes, mouth and heart. It felt like we both were “holding my place.”

From the age of six, I wrote poems for my mother. Burned the edges of the paper and decoupaged them to the panels of wood I had stained with a blowtorch. It was my humble attempt to make her feel better. To feel safe.

I suppose in my childish ways, I thought maybe life was like a lifeguard at the beach — that you only had to be saved once. But I learned that in love, in life, we would have to (get to) do it again and again. I kept writing. I kept painting.

And all those poems, those paintings, they weren’t just saving her, but me. And day to day, as we reflected smiles from heart to heart, face to face, we could look at each other and say, “You did that.”

Life’s pages keep turning. True love moves with you. Recognizes you. Holds you. Place to changing place.