Hello my friend.

It's been six years today and you are still missed.

The presence of your memory in my life has changed.  Gone is the sense that you are watching me, living my life from somewhere far away.  Gone is the sense that you are stuck, frozen in time along a path we walked together until you died and my steps veered off in another direction.

In the place of all the things I have felt about you, about our friendship, about your death, is this sense of absolute and unending love.  Yours is the love I pull about myself in the darkness.  Yours is the love that soothes me when no one else can reach me.  Yours is the love that is always here.

How is it you can be here, always and forever, when you left for good so many years ago? How can I feel your support, your generosity, your unfailing love from so many years away?

So much has happened since you left. So much has changed. The day you died marked a change in my view of the world. It is the day I stopped believing that the good things we do are rewarded in some cosmic way, that good people are handled carefully by the universe.  It is, for all intents and purposes, the day I stopped believing in God.

Don't feel badly for me, what I have left of my life is far more precious for it's randomness.  The good things I choose to do are done only for my knowing they are good, not to balance the scales against the wrongs I have committed.  You have inspired me in death, as you did in life, to live more fully, more passionately.

It is snowing here today, a hard and heavy snow raining down it's blanketing quiet on the streets below my window.  The kids want to play in it.  They are so big now. You would love to see how Monkey has grown.  You would love the woman she is becoming. Otter is as cute and tenacious as ever.  They are both wicked smart.

I love you my friend. I hope you know.