Why I Wrote The Distance We Crossed

There was a long time when this story was just mine.

It lived in letters, in long-distance phone calls, in quiet decisions that felt normal at the time but only later revealed how much they meant. It wasn’t something I ever set out to write. It was simply the life I chose—and the life we built.

The moment that changed that came on an ordinary day, behind a bar, in the middle of a conversation with a regular.

We were talking about our fathers. It was one of those conversations that drifts into something more meaningful than small talk—stories, memories, the kind of things you don’t always say out loud but do when you feel comfortable with someone. I mentioned my wife missing her father, and how she wasn’t as fortunate as I was to be able to visit easily. Her family is in the Philippines. Distance changes things like that.

That caught his attention. He asked if I had been in the military—which is the usual assumption, and a fair one. I told him no. Then I told him how we met. I gave him a brief version of our story—how it started, how it grew, and how it led to the life we’ve shared now for 33 years.

When I finished, he looked at me and said,“Tex, there’s a story in there somewhere.”

I shrugged it off. To me, I had simply married the woman I loved. I never thought of it as anything more special than what any man would do for the person he believed in.

But he didn’t let it go.

He said it again—this time a little more firmly—that people would want to read a story like that.

I remember standing there thinking that I had never once considered our life as something meant to be told. It was just ours.

But his words stayed with me.

For most of my life, I never thought there was anything unusual about my marriage.

I loved my wife. I chose her. I built a life with her. In my mind, that’s what a man does when he knows what matters to him. I never saw our story as something bigger than that, or anything more meaningful than what any other person would do for the one they love.

So I kept it to myself.

There was another reason, too. I never saw myself as a writer—honestly, not even as a reader. Books have always had a way of putting me to sleep. I’ve always struggled to stay engaged with them, and because of that, the idea of writing one never crossed my mind. It didn’t feel like something that belonged to me or something I had any business trying to do.

I didn’t think I had anything worth reading about. I didn’t think I had the skill to tell it even if I did. And I didn’t think anyone outside of my family would ever care to hear it.

So for years, our story stayed where it began—in letters, in conversations, in memories that lived quietly between us.

And I was perfectly content with that.

The more I thought about that man’s suggestion, the more I began to wonder if he might be right.

Maybe it was time.

But then came the next question—how?

Writing a book felt intimidating. Where would I even start? How do you capture interest? How do you make something sound professional when you’ve never written anything before?

That night after work, I sat down at the table. A piece of paper in front of me. A pen in my hand. And for a moment, nothing came. I felt mentally paralyzed, unsure how to begin.

And then something shifted.

I wrote the first few words.

Then a few more.

Within a few sentences, I felt like something had taken over—not in a strange way, but in a natural one. The pen began to move without hesitation. It was as if my subconscious had been waiting for permission to speak. The story started to pour out of me once it was finally allowed to be told.

Within the next two hours, I had a prologue and the first rough chapter.

I shared it with the same man I had spoken with at the bar.

He read it and said, “See? You have something to tell. Now finish the story.”

And that’s what I set out to do.

If you’ve ever taken a risk on something that mattered—love, a dream, a life you believed in—I hope this story speaks to you.

Thank you for being here.

—Tex