You are So loved.
The message was printed on a torn off section of the back cover of a spiral notebook. Opening the glass door of the Little Free Library, the note was the first thing he saw so he pulled it out, read it, smiled and put in back in its place prominently displayed on the floor of the Book Box set on a pedestal amid blooming perennials in a front yard by her favorite coffee shop.
When he read it, his heart skipped a beat; he was so happy he didn’t know what to do.
Then he rummaged through the box and found the book he believed he saw her put there along with the note—a beautiful old hardback on crafts and native artwork from all over the world—a subject she knew was dear to him.
To backtrack a bit, this scene on the sidewalk in Regent Square on a late summer afternoon came shortly after he said a silent prayer that he’d run into her on the street. Shortly after the prayer, a block from the café, he saw her. He noticed her about a half block from her (the little library being midway down the block) as he was approaching. She was hunched over next to the little library, holding a book and writing something on the piece of cardboard. She didn’t look at him or say anything, but he was sure she’d seen him and that something was up.
When he initially saw her he stopped, it startled him so to see the object of his affection so close, so fast after praying. Then he took a deep breath and slowly walked forward. He instinctively wanted to give her time to do whatever it was she was doing. When he was about 10 feet away from her she finished, and scurried away without a look or a word.
Still, he knew the note was for him—however indirect she wanted to be about it, he knew it was for him. It was referencing a recent barroom tirade of his and some of the fears he expressed then. He’d feared she was frontin, just wanting the attention of an adoring male. Now, he no longer feared that.
But the note could apply to other people, he thought. And knowing how lonely he’d been not very long ago, and knowing she loved him and they’d soon be together, he left that simple, beautiful blessing of a note in the book box. He hoped some lonely soul might come upon it, take heart, and have a little more courage to struggle on.
