Day 20

I was cleaning out my wallet today and I found a note that Anderson wrote me dated 7/23/2005. He wrote this before his diagnosis... before our lives became inextricably intertwined with doctors, MRI's, chemo, and the like. Even before all of that... here's a little bit of what he wrote me, probably before he left for Brazil:

I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for loving me the way you do. No girl has ever loved me the way that you do and I'm certain that no one ever could... One of the beautiful things about our relationship is that we can spend time apart from each other without ever really leaving each other's hearts and each other's minds. Our memories will always bring that smile to our faces when we need it and our hearts will always beat for each other as we await the future we hold together. You shouldn't be crying right now because I'm doing the crying for you this time. There's no need to cry, my love, after all... you are still my one and only.

I miss him SO much today. I'm glad I found this note. I'd been pondering the phrase "he lives on in my heart" and how untrue I felt it was. What does that mean anyway? I don't have a living, growing relationship with him anymore. Whatever is in my heart is whatever I remember of him and not really him "living" there. I knew him well, but he would still surprise me all the time. I miss that.

Our memories bring tears to my eyes now and not a smile to my face.

I've tried many times to write since the memorial. I could never really finish a string of thoughts enough to publish the post.

There are so many things I want to write about, but I don't want to just write just for the sake of writing. I'll just publish it now so it doesn't get lost.