January

Today is January 19th, my little sweetheart. Over the course of six days in January are two rather bitter anniversaries for me.

On January 13th, 1991 (when I was just kid, I now know), my father passed away suddenly of a heart attack. His wife found him on the sofa. He'd come downstairs early that morning, made coffee and died watching the news without her being there to wake and help him.

And on January 19th, 2007, my friend and theatre mentor, Curt Dempster, passed away. He, too, was found - by the superintendent of his apartment building. It was a secret (not a very well-kept one) for sometime, but I think it's allowable now to say that, sadly, he took his own life.

The loss of these two men - one, something of a father figure and the other, my actual father (who I feel I never really got to know as a man) - are something that I carried with me and that you deeply understood when I first met you.

You did your best to heal me, my little sweetheart. Your extraordinary kindness and hyper-vigilant love wrapped me in a blanket of protection. You, my darling girl, are the very reason for which I was born. I know that. I think I knew that very early in our acquaintance, even before I had fallen so deeply in love with you. Something in you resonated deep inside my being, bypassing my brain and shaking me to my core. My soul recognized you. I think that's why I wept every time we parted, even if only for a fortnight, even if knowing I would soon be with you, even if we'd already booked the next flight, made plans for the next adventure.

There is simply no one like you, my little sweetheart. How could there be?! That is as it should be. You, my gorgeous girl, my True One, my beautiful spirit, are the other half of my soul. How I long to fly to you! And I remember, on these cold and bitter January days, just how close our paths were beginning to draw near one and another. How God was bringing them to cross and converge. You understood loss and love more than anyone I have ever known. And what's more, you had more natural empathy, too.

Your love saved me, my little sweetheart. I knew it from the first. And I, like my father and my friend, will cross into The Forever, too. Soon, I hope, my love. And I will again know your kindness. I will know your touch. I will know our love, which can never perish. And I - we - will be one again.

As you told me, as you comforted me in my dreams with the message that I now wear so proudly tattooed upon my inside forearm to remind me always - Our Oneness Can Never Be Erased.

I love you, Summer. With all my heart and soul I do. Until that Day! Until that day!

With love & faith,

Michael