Happy Anniversary

Dear Sam,

Here we are again. This would have been our 17th wedding anniversary.

It's hard to believe that so much has happened in the last two and a half years. The kids are growing... both are so much stronger and more mature. I'm definitely a different man than the one who held you as you left on that quiet April morning. Even the house we made a home has been rebuilt; a different version of the former thing.

Things are happening for me professionally, creatively... I have rediscovered my heart, and the capacity to feel deeply enough to have it broken. That's just fine, because it all adds up to closure and completeness.

I still think about you a little every day (some days, like today, more than a little). I look back on our almost 15 years of marriage, just over 20 years together, as one would perceive an old slide show. While the images may still be clear, time and distance seem so much greater now. Before you died, I was always able to maintain a very strong temporal continuity; past experiences seemed close and accessible. Since then, even recent events sink into the distant past so much more rapidly.

I wish you were here to share what I've learned and what I've become, but a big part of that was gained from losing you - so it is an equation without a solution. Solve for X, but X no longer exists in the alphabet.

I could say more, but really, nothing more need be said, since if your spirit persists as I believe it does, you already know all of this anyway. It's just a way for this corporeally-bound human being to order his thoughts on a pretty somber occasion.

Raise a glass beyond the veil tonight - I will do the same.

Love always,
Todd