Happy birthday Ashley

*love*

But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
Ruth 1:16-17

Ashley quoted this to me once. The passage is about a woman, Ruth who, by saying the above passage, committed herself to Naomi. Committed to Naomi first, then Naomi's people, then her God. Committed to her for the rest of her life.

It's a beautiful passage. But I'm not going to go into some religious discussion about how I interpret this passage etc. etc.

It's just something I happened to remember her saying to me. And regardless of what actually happened, it still means something to me. That somebody as beautiful and wonderful as she is, would allow me the pleasure of loving her.

I said to her that it was a pretty big deal, for her to even quote it to me. Because of what we were going to deal with in the inevitable future and all that. But she said that she didn't care, she just wanted to be with me.

So in that beautiful moment and for all the future beautiful moments we had together since that day, she was committed to me. It just didn't get any better than that.

Happy Birthday Ashley. I wish you all the love and happiness in the world.
I love you. Pour toujours.

If you would like some reading material on the passage, here are a couple of links I found useful:
1) Ruth 1 - The entire chapter leading to the quote
2) Lesbians, Gays, Transgender and the Bible - wouldn't be complete without our interpretation eh?