Coleen Poem by cassidy Lovato

There is still so much
I have yet to learn about you.

I know your smile.
I know your laugh.
I know the way your eyes soften
when your family walks through the door.

But I know
those are only the pages
I've been lucky enough to read.

When we first met,
I thought I understood you.

I was young.

I saw a woman
who made promises
she couldn't always keep.

A woman who arrived unexpectedly,
who forgot the little things,
who leaned on her son
more than I understood.

I thought
I had figured you out.

I was wrong.

About every single piece of it.

The older I become,
the more I realize
how often we mistake
what we cannot yet understand.

I didn't see
the weight you carried.

The calendars filled before sunrise.

The endless responsibilities.

The way you somehow managed
to keep adding to your ship
instead of letting it sink.

You weren't unreliable.

You were surviving.

You weren't forgetful.

You simply carried
more than one heart
was ever meant to hold.

Sometimes,
the little things
slip away.

Sometimes,
the big things do too.

That doesn't make you careless.

It makes you human.

And I've learned
that being human
is far more beautiful
than being perfect.

I used to think
you burdened your son.

Now I understand.

You trusted him.

You respected him.

You saw in him
someone steady enough
to lean against
when life became heavy.

And he never carried you
because he had to.

He did it because he loves you.

Because that's what love does.

It doesn't keep score.

It simply stays.

One of my favorite things
about you
lives inside him.

Your smile.

The way it stretches
across your whole face.

The way your cheeks rise,
your eyes disappear,
and joy arrives
before a single word is spoken.

When he smiles that way,
I see you.

Not just your face.

Your heart.

You are cut
from the same cloth.

Kind.

Hardworking.

Stubborn when it matters.

Loving beyond measure.

Neither of you
pretend to be perfect.

Neither of you
need to be.

And then there is the way
you love your husband.

I don't know
if either of you
truly sees it.

But we do.

The way your voice softens
when you speak to him.

The way your eyes
still find his
across a room.

The quiet tenderness
between the two of you
feels almost youthful,
as if somewhere inside,
you're still the girl
who fell in love with him.

It's never loud.

It doesn't ask
to be admired.

Yet somehow,
everyone around you
can feel it.

It reminds me
that love isn't measured
by grand gestures,
but by the way
two people continue
to choose each other,
day after day.

I hope,
years from now,
Josh and I
carry that same kind of love.

Thank you,
for raising
the man I get to call my husband.

For every lesson
you taught him
that now lives
inside our home.

For every sacrifice
I'll probably never know.

For every moment
you kept going
when most people
would have stopped.

Thank you
for showing me
that first impressions
are often unfinished stories.

We still have years ahead of us.

Years for me
to learn your history.

Your joys.

Your hardships.

The dreams you still carry.

And I look forward
to every one of them.

Because now,

when I look at you,

I don't see
the woman I once thought I knew.

I simply see

Coleen.

And that,
I've learned,

is someone
worth knowing.