Written in 2019
I’m not sure if it was done on purpose, but I’d like to think Bruce (and maybe Rachel perhaps) knew it would be meaningful to me to hear “For You” by David Ryan Harris played at their wedding yesterday.
Bruce and Rachel are close friends of mine, and with Bruce in particular, one of the reasons we get along is our similar music tastes. Any bluesy, rnb, acoustic type of song is guaranteed to turn us into mush, and this particular DRH song is no exception. Back in college, Bruce and I would jam to this song with our guitars while straining to hit the high notes. Actually, it occurs to me that Rachel was an occasional listener at these jam sessions as well, when she’d make the two hour (by bus) trip up from the city.
I’d imagine this song meant something to them because of the distance they’d often need to traverse to get to each other. They were in a long distance relationship for a couple of years in college.
The chorus features my favorite lines.
“There ain’t nothing strong enough, to keep me away from you. There could be a wall of fire, ten feet high, I would walk on through.
Where there once was only room for one, forever there will be two. That’s why I travel all this way. For you, to you. For you. “
I am struck by how appropriate these lyrics are for Bruce and Rachel’s love story. They’ve been together since high school (now married at 31), and have overcome long distance and tribulation, managing to grow together during a period of life characterized by so much individual growth and change. Many young couples separate because they fail to grow together. Instead, they grow apart.
It is clear that, like the lyrics of the song suggest, Bruce and Rachel made and continue to make room for each other. Their little wrinkle and secret is that they’ve learned to make enough room for both who they are and who they will eventually grow into.
It inspires me, their story. It takes a certain relentlessness and stubbornness to stay together in your teens and 20s, and I hope and trust that they will pursue each other doggedly for the rest of their lives.
To Bruce and Rachel and anyone else for whom love is the central and most worthwhile pursuit: may we love well no matter the circumstance and distance, always choosing each other, day by day and moment to moment, and may we always find joy in the pursuit of our beloved.
Bruce and Rachel, cheers for you, to you, for you.