Dear Noah,

    I write this letter by candlelight as you lie sleeping in the bedroom we have shared since the day we were married. And though I can't hear the soft sounds of your slumber, I know you are there, and soon I will be lying next to you again as I always have. And I will feel your warmth and your comfort, and your breaths will slowly guide me to the place where I dream of you and the wonderful man you are.

    I see the flame beside me and it reminds me of another fire from decades ago, with me in your soft clothes and you in your jeans. I knew then we would always be together, even though I wavered the following day. My heart had been captured, roped by a southern poet, and I knew inside that it had always been yours. Who I was to question a love that rode on shooting stars and roared like crashing waves? For that is what it was between us then and that is what it is today.

    I remember coming back to you the next day, the day my mother visited. I was so scared, more scared than I had ever been because I was sure you would never forgive me for leaving you. I was shaking as I got out of the car, but you took it all away with your smile and the way you held your hand out to me. "How 'bout some coffee," was all you said. And you never brought it up again. In all our years together.

    Nor did you question me when I would leave and walk alone the next few days. And when I came in with tears in my eyes, you always knew whether I needed you to hold me or to just let me be. I  don't know how you knew, but you did, and you make it easier for me. Later when we went to the small chapel and traded our rings and made our vows, I looked in your eyes and knew I had made the right decision. But more than that, I knew I was foolish for ever considering someone else. I have never wavered since.

    We had a wonderful life together, and I think about it a lot now. I close my eyes sometimes and see you with speckles of gray in your hair, sitting on the porch and playing your guitar while little ones play and clap to the music you create. Your clothes are stained from hours of work and you are tired, and though I offer you time to relax, you smile and say, "That's what I am doing now." I find your love for our children very sensual and exciting. "You're a better father than you know," I tell you later, after the children are sleeping...

    I love you for many things, especially your passions, for they have always been those things which are most beautiful in life. Love and poetry and fatherhood and friendship and beauty and nature. And I am glad you have taught the children these things, for I know their lives are better for it. They tell me how special you are to them, and every time they do, it makes me feel like the luckiest woman alive.

    You have taught me as well, and inspired me, and supported me in my painting, and you will never know how much it has meant to me. My works hang in museums and private collections now, and though there have been times when I was frazzled and distracted because of shows and critics, you were always there with kind words, encouraging me. You understood my need for my own studio, my own space, and saw beyond the paint on my clothes and in my hair and sometimes on the furniture. I know it was not easy. It takes a man to do that, Noah, to live with something like that. And you have. For forty-five years now. Wonderful years.

    You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together. You have something inside you, Noah, something beautiful and strong. Kindness, that's what I see when I look at you now, that's what everyone sees. Kindness. You are the most forgiving and peaceful man I know. God is with you, He must be, for you are the closest thing to an angel that I've ever met.

    I know you thought me crazy for making us write our story before we finally leave our home, but I have my reasons and I thank you for your patience. And though you asked, I never told you why, but now I think it is time you knew.

    We have lived a lifetime most couples never know, and yet, when I look at you, I am frightened by the knowledge that all this will be ending soon. For we both know my prognosis and what it will mean to us. I see your tears and I worry more about you than I do about me, because I fear the pain I know you will go through. There are no words to express my sorrow for this, and I am at a loss for words.

    So I love you so deeply, so incredibly much, that I will find a way to come back to you despite my disease, I promise you that. And this is where the story comes in. When I am lost and lonely, read this story--just as you told it to the children--and know that in some way, I will realize it's about us. And perhaps, just perhaps, we will find a way to be together again.

    Please don't be angry with me on days I do not remember you, and we both know they will come. Kn ow that I love you, that I always will, and that no matter what happens, know I have led the greatest life possible. My life with you.

    And if you save this letter to read again, then believe what I am writing for you now. Noah, wherever you are and whenever this is, I love you. I love you now as I write this, and I love you now as you read this. And I am so sorry if I am not able to tell you. I love you deeply, my husband. You are, and always have been, my dream.

Allie

~"The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks~

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Allie 此時已經罹患了老人癡呆症了...他們都知道有一天, Allie會忘掉Noah...

而一個失去回憶的老婆婆,要對老公公說什麼話呢?

如果有一天我即將失去回憶...What would I do?

好多句我好愛. 也許世界上沒有Noah這麼好的男人(畢竟這本小說寫得好像他們沒吵架過似的,好像Noah很完美的樣子),就算有Noah這個人,我也不一定會愛上他.但Kindness, passion for everything, 不一定要是Noah才有吧?:)