Gosh, this lady. This beautiful lady has been a pivotal person in my life. I think that if I were to truly dive into the details and explain our whole story, that we’d be here for ages. What she’s done for my family and I is beyond comprehension. Rhonda is one of the few select people in my life who I look at them and see the impact that they’ve had and how God has used them to shape me and guide me to be a better human being.
Rhonda is my aunt and up until a year ago, we weren’t very close. For most of my life, she lived in Nevada and we only spoke on rare occasions. Despite the fact that as I grew up she wasn’t in my life consistently, the times when she was around always left a big impact. They were moments I always remembered and carried with me all throughout my life. Like the time she took me to a Shania Twain concert in Las Vegas and I got to shake Shania’s hand, or the time she let me visit the Kindergarten classroom she taught in, or the time she visited us when we lived in Vermont and we stayed up late writing down a bunch of songs we made up (peaches in the dark was our hit single). Even when there was distance physically and emotionally, we always had some sort of a bond. I grew up wondering if soulmates were real and when I met my husband, Andrew, I knew for a fact that God put people on this earth that were destined for each other. What I didn’t realize was that it’s possible to have more than one soulmate because thinking back on my childhood and the connection I felt with my aunt, it’s easy to see that God created us to be soulmates and in his perfect timing we’d be united.
I will never ever forget the night that Rhonda and I made our first step in our relationship. It was New Year’s Eve 2016 and after knocking back a few drinks we both admitted things we had held back for years. We were bonded together and instantly connected through the trials that we’d experienced not only in the past year that she’d lived in Wisconsin but in our whole lives.
Whenever I think about our conversations I’m always gently reminded of this quote:
“Friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
We are cut from the same exact cloth yet oddly enough we’re different in so many areas. We seem to mesh together in this perfect way that can only be described as putting together a puzzle. And as 2017 went by those puzzle pieces became bigger and stronger as our relationship has grown. And that’s what this past year has all been about. As the new year has begun I feel it’s fitting to share this
Coffee Musings project since new years was the one year mark of our relationship starting. This past year has almost felt like a tape on fast forward. In a very short 12 months, our relationship jumped to estranged family, awkward neighbors, to inseparable best friends. It’s crazy what God can do in just one year.
During this particular Coffee Musings there wasn’t any music playing in the background, nor was there too much talking. It was mostly silent as we sat together in downtown Madison enjoying a cup of coffee together at
Crescendo. It was the first Coffee Musings I’d done outside of my home and I loved that it represents our relationship. All the times we’ve been out together exploring new coffee shops and talking for hours on end about how God is leading us and how we are growing together. These talks have shaped me as a human being, allowing me to feel courage and determination, to be honest, and stand up for where I feel God is leading me. To help me work through all of the hardships and wounds that I’ve acquired over the years. To finally have a person who understood me and listened to my heart without judgment.
Rhonda was the example and inspiration I needed in this season of my life. All the things I felt my heart being tugged at but unsure about, she gently encouraged me in the healthy direction because she had been there before. She’d taken the steps to recovery before and held out a helping hand to me. And more than anything else, I felt safe. I felt safe to be myself and to say and do the things I wanted. We even go a few days without talking now and I start to feel an emptiness. I never realized how much hurt and anger I had locked away inside of me until I had a person who encouraged me to open up and assured me that I wasn’t crazy about how I felt. It’s been an amazing journey growing our relationship and finding someone who is like minded and on the same path. To find someone who not only genuinely loves me, but loves my family as a whole. Someone who lends a hand when I’m too stubborn to ask for help, or someone who supports my every decision, or someone who finishes my sentences when I can’t find the words or someone to send funny memes to when I can’t sleep at night.
For years I was ok with it just being Andrew and I. I had faced the fact that maybe some people aren’t meant to have family or friends that are super close physically and emotionally, maybe I just wasn’t that person who was meant to have that and that God wanted us to have a life of solitude. But I think deep down I always longed for something more and it wasn’t until Rhonda and her family came into our lives that I realized how lonely and isolated I had been for years. She was the person I never knew I needed and now I can’t possibly imagine my life without her.
And now here we are exactly a year later. A lot has changed and we’ve made big decisions but we’ve made them together as a family and I don’t think I could properly express how eager and excited I am to see where God leads us in the new year. I know that there are some big things for us on the horizon and I feel so incredibly blessed to have someone by my side to experience them all with.
PHOTOGRAPHY DETAILS
Lab: PhotoVision Prints
Film: Fuji 400H @ 200 iso & Ilford Delta 3200 @ 400 iso
Camera: Pentax 645N
Lens: 75mm @ f/2.8
