I became my grandson’s guardian when he was barely two years old.

“I always knew I’d come back,” he said.

That was the moment my heart, which had been fractured for six long years, finally began to mend.

Now we have this one precious year before he leaves for college.

We cook dinner together like we used to. We sit on the couch and watch the old cartoons he loved as a child. We talk late into the night about everything he experienced while he was away — the good, the difficult, the confusing.

There are still gaps in our story. Years we can’t reclaim.

But we are filling the present with as much warmth as we can.

Sometimes I catch him looking around the kitchen or sitting quietly in his old room, as if reassuring himself it’s real.

And sometimes I simply watch him — this kind, thoughtful young man — and feel an overwhelming certainty.

Time can separate people.

Distance can stretch love thin.