Five years ago today I lost him.
Five years later I found hand scrawled notes of his on a yellow legal notepad. He had written a rough draft for our Peace Corps application essay.
We applied to be Peace Corps Volunteers the Spring of 2001. We were accepted in May to join the Honduras team leaving that same summer. In less than two months we resigned from our jobs, put everything we owned in storage (parent's garage, sister's basement, David and Robin's rafters…I think our belongings ended up in at least five different places) and we packed a two-year life commitment into two hiking backpacks.
One of the essay questions: What are your expectations of your Peace Corps experience?
Shawn's response:
By stripping away our possessions, ties to family and friends and removing ourselves from the American culture, we hope to improve the lives of the people we serve. We also hope to improve our relationship and take it beyond what we have now. We want to have an experience so life-changing that there will only be a handful of people who could understand what we have. We want to achieve a state of interdependence that makes us much more productive, creative and loving than we are now. We want to have a big adventure together.
What peace I have tonight, knowing we had a big adventure. I consider the past five years another type of adventure, one I didn't apply for or write an essay for or pack a backpack for, but nonetheless a journey that continues to shape and influence and change me. Thank you, Shawn, for opening my life to give and receive all the adventures along the way.
