July is the month we say goodbye to writers who are retiring or moving on to new adventures, and this is Ansley’s last post. She has been writing with us since March 2019.

The morning was soft and bright. It had rained all night, steady on the pitched roof of our little cabin by the stream. I woke up first, of course, and laid quietly, looking through the curtain cracks at the veil of grey dissolving in the kiss of a new sun. “This is it,” I thought. Today is the day we’re going to get engaged.

The mist left over from the rain was entirely gone when Patrick woke up. I kissed him good morning and then made for the shower. I got ready like I have on every other morning, with maybe a little more attention to my eyeliner than usual. While I brushed my teeth I thought, “This is such a big day, and somehow, also, just another day.”

We went to breakfast at Blue Moon Cafe and sat at a high top table at the back of the restaurant. Patrick got us coffee from the self-serve station by the register and laughed as I put one cream, and then another, and then another in the heavy ceramic mug. We filled up on corned beef hash with runny eggs and hot sauce and then I made room for half of an enormous pancake before we tumbled back onto the street, stuffed and delighted.

The sun was fully unfurled and we mixed with farmers market attendees and Saranac Lake tourists while my hair finished drying under the June rays. Our hands found each other again and again as we walked and dodged and looped in and out of shops. I tried to remember how it felt—to etch those last moments of dating in my mind. I bought a pair of shorts from an outdoor clearance rack.

And then at last, after sharing an iced latte, we got in the car and followed a winding road out of town. My phone connected to the bluetooth and I wondered, “What do you listen to when you’re on the way to get engaged?” I quickly added a few favorites to the queue and the last one played just as we lost service and pulled off into the sandy roadside parking area. My heart was beating a little faster now—this is really happening; this is really it.

Our hands found each other once again, and we stepped onto the path between high trees, every leaf shot through with the white gold sun. The trail stretched on in front of us and I thought, “This is what our marriage will be: a walk in the woods, through bright sun and days-on-end rain”. Not so unlike a garden, and I can tell you that God felt just as close. At last we came to the place: a little foot bridge built long ago, and we stopped to look out at the water. You can imagine all that happened next: the loving words, the tears that welled hot and true, the incredible sight of a strong man on his knee, the shaking hands and breathless joy. And I thought, “This is it”.

I could never have imagined how much life would unfold in the months and years I’ve spent filling this space with my words. My first post was in March of 2019, when I was just about to turn twenty-four, writing from a kitchen table in that charming first floor apartment in Buffalo. The journey with what would be a years-long illness was just beginning, and this became a powerful space for processing the intense grief, loss of independence, and struggle for hope through that time. When I wrote “Waiting in the Dark,” which is still one of my favorite pieces, I genuinely didn’t know how that story would end.

Of course you know, if you have read along on this six year journey, that my health and strength came back and I returned to the boat, and the mountain, and my work. Bria and I explored New York City and later learned how to endure long, dark nights backpacking through Central Pennsylvania. In 2022 our family said goodbye to our beloved Mississippi dog and in 2023 I finished an MBA wearing my high school class ring and a silver necklace with Calvin’s motto. I changed roles at Wegmans a few times and in the spring of 2024, I decided it was time to love a new place and moved farther east to Rochester.

My post last June, “Won’t It Be Fun” expressed hope for this new season, even as I was honest about my disappointments at some parts of my life, especially my singleness. I wrote: “Won’t it be fun to see what the coming days, months, and years will bring? Isn’t it exciting to wonder what God has planned? Isn’t it good to wake up and wonder if this will turn into the new best day of your life?” Just a few weeks after writing those words of expectant hope, Patrick and I would go on our first date and just a year after that, we would stand together in God’s blue cathedral and agree to spend the rest of our lives together.

But the point isn’t that this story has the happy ending of finding the love of my life, it is that my story has had one thousand happy endings and I live in the sure and certain hope that the miracles of being alive will continue, because being alive is, in itself, a miracle. If these seventy-five posts and over one hundred thousand words have said anything, I hope it is that life is in the building and the being. Month by month, word by word we invite God’s creativity and goodness into our lives.

And so, this is it: my final words as a humble part of the post calvin. If you’d like to keep reading my musings, I’d be delighted to see you over on my Substack where I’ll be writing the stories of thirty-ness, and maybe even a few about married life.

Until then, fare well and fare forward, into ever great joy.

Ansley Kelly

Ansley Kelly (’16) makes her home in Rochester, NY, where she delights in short, sweet summers spent sailing and long winters spent skiing at her favorite mountain. Between outdoor adventures, you can find her buying books more quickly than she can read them and indulging in mid-morning naps. She works for Wegmans Food Markets where she finds purpose and joy in feeding her community and the wider world.