He still loved me

I told him I didn’t love him. He still loved me.

I cursed him, mocked him, dismissed him as irrelevant. He still loved me.

I said I didn’t want him or need him, that he just got in my way. He still loved me.

He saw all my many flaws, knows how much I have failed. He has seen me sin boldly and he still loved me.

When I blamed him for everything that went wrong in my life and said he simply didn’t listen to me or care about me, he still loved me.

I scoffed when he said he would die for me. Then he did.

There was that time when I was in the boat with the fishermen. I watched him on the shore, building a fire, and heard him shout to the fishermen to cast their nets on the other side. I jumped from the boat and swam to the shore to be with him. I was cold, shivering and afraid. He wrapped me in in a blanket, sat with me by the fire holding both of my hands in his, and I looked deeply into his dark eyes. He still loved me.

And I came to know, so deep in my heart, in spite of all my protestations, in spite of all the effort to run from him, to hide from him, to deny his existence, that I love him. Perhaps because of all my efforts to deny him, to not love him, I now love him with a love so fierce and deep that it has become the single most important thing in my life. He has taken away my fear and shame and he has given my life meaning. He never gave up on me and will never leave me.  And he still loves me.

Tomorrow is his birthday.