Swept Away: March 2005

March 31, 2005

Easter Sunday evening, 27 March 2005 [9:45 p.m.]

Hey you! Was too glum today to do any packing. I did watch a video tonight – "Memento" with Guy Pierce and Carrie-Anne Moss. I am sure you would like it; it’s astounding in the way it was done. It’s fairly likely, however, that you haven’t heard of it as it didn’t come out with a lot of fanfare. When I come up to Heaven, I’ll bring you a copy, K? Hey, that fits – I used to have this dream about you and I sitting side-by-side on a sofa eating popcorn and watching a movie. I’ve had it a couple of times actually.

No news other than that we went on daylight savings this weekend – I wonder when BC changes over. Oh, yeah, nothing from Don yet. And I haven’t worked up the nerve to write the person I suspect to be Ken. I almost started a letter to Alison today but then I lost my nerve. You have to be in the right mood for these sorts of things!

Rick has been keeping in touch (he rang me tonight from Western Australia) which has been a great help. I don’t know what has happened to my friendship with T. of Duncan but he doesn’t write any more like he used to which is a shame. But a wonderful thing has happened – I finally tracked down a dear, dear old friend of mine (yet another T.!) and I am so pleased. He is so sweet – he even promised to convey my thoughts to you via your star (since I can’t see the bloody thing from down here). That’s pretty cool, eh? There is some other special person, R. from Hawaii, that I want to find and, oh yeah, D.W.W. who used to be in Colorado. It’s like having a collection of precious crystals that you get down from the shelf and marvel at in the sunshine from time to time. All the light and colour and movement and joy. You’re my most special crystal, Keith, and how I love to look at you and remember you – all your facets and your brilliance. I don’t know why you chose to shine on me but I am grateful for it and there are no regrets. And, in time, I will be OK as I said.

Loving you and missing you –

- Susan

Easter Sunday afternoon, 27 March 2005 [4:45 p.m.]

Hello, my Grizz.

Today has turned out to be a sparklingly beautiful day – just the sort of day you want on Easter. I seem unable to motivate myself, however, and the vast majority of our stuff remains unpacked. I feel as if I am in quicksand or trying to walk through a vat of sludgy concrete – I feel a physical pressure on my legs, arms and torso. Inside me is a large and impossibly heavy boulder, which is suspended by a rope from the place where my heart used to be. It is hard to move, to breathe, to eat. Incredibly, some small part of me still waits for you and wonders when you will telephone or message or email.

I think often of Alison. I have to write her, if only to extend my sympathy to her. And Don – the time has come for me to write him again but I have been unable to do so.

And as for Ken – I think there is a possibility that I have located him and I must compose a letter to him as well. What to say? Keith, he proved his love for you and every single one of us that care about you owe him our heartfelt thanks. Plus, there are my questions and I know he made Promises to you, too, and I am sure he will hold them as sacred as I hold mine. So, even if I do find him, he may not be able to help me come to terms with your death even if he wanted to.

I am going leave it there for now, honey, I will try to write later tonight. Love –

- S.

March 30, 2005

Easter Sunday morning, 27 March 2005 [9:30 a.m.]

Good morning, my big, sweet man.

Remember how I said that I was going to sleep in this morning? Well a certain cockatoo came calling at 7:30 a.m. and called for an hour. I didn’t go out to see (not sure why I didn’t ‘cuz I did believe it was you again) but he called and called and eventually flew away. Was it you calling me to come and fly with you? Figure out a way that I can, sweetheart, and I will come with you and leave all the rest behind. It doesn’t seem that anything else matters any more. Please, please take me with you to where ever you are – I need to be with you more than I need to be here any more. Oh, bugger! There’s those Promises I made to you! How can I come to you and keep my Promises that I made to you?? You have put me in a terrible predicament! Look, you and God decide, OK? If you think I deserve to come, then please take me. If you want me to stay here and work, I will – I promised you after all. Honey, I never knew how much I’d miss you. I never knew it would be this hard. Please, please, please find a way for Don or Alison or Ken to contact me and for them to be OK with communicating with me and, eventually, answering the questions that I have.

A song that has been in my head for the last couple of weeks is Blue Sky by the Allman Brothers – here’s an excerpt from it:

Blue Sky – Allman Brothers Band

Don’t fly, mister bluebird, I’m just walking down the road,
early morning sunshine tells me all I need to know.
You’re my blue sky, you’re my sunny day.
Lord, you know it makes me high when you turn your love my way,
turn your love my way, yeah.

You are my blue sky, honey, and away where you are is where my heart is and without you I am no longer whole. I am missing you so –

- S.

Sulfur-crested cockatoo

Saturday night, 26 March 2005 [9:15 p.m.]

Hey ya, my very best buddy. Missing you so and there were a few times today that I couldn’t stop myself from crying. Last night, when I sat on the bed reading, I asked you for a sign – that you were out there somewhere, that you remembered and missed me, that we’d see each other again. This morning Wozza and I went out to the front yard to start setting up for the garage sale. Several mynahs bullied a sulfur-crested cockatoo into a juniper tree in our yard. The mynahs left him alone and he bounced and danced like they do and then he started eating the berries from the tree. He kept looking at us and raising his crest. We think he got a little pissed from the berries – I started to cry and I had to leave but Warwick said that the mynahs came back and chased him away but before he left he broke off a small branch from the tree and flew off with it. He was here a long time and we have heard cockies here before but never, ever seen them in our yard. I’d like to believe it was you.

The garage sale was chaotic. Advertised to start at 10 a.m. we had twenty-five people at 9:30 (when we were only just beginning to bring stuff out ‘cuz it had rained up to the start). After deducting what we spent on advertising, we made about $250 and didn’t even sell the ‘fridge! I’m very tired with a sore back and it seems much later than it really is. I am going to have a lovely sleep-in tomorrow morning and stay all cuddly in bed for as long as I please. Then I’m going to get up and spend about an hour washing my hair. You know it’s quite long (and curly) so it’s a bit of a pain to wash but tomorrow I am just going to enjoy getting clean – I feel like a real grot. Hey! I found my Colorado fishing licence from way back when. I also found a speech made by Chief Seattle in 1854 about the First Nations’ people’s connection to the land and to nature. If I had found it sooner I would have typed it out and emailed it to you. Perhaps your nephew and nieces would like it?

I rang the grief counselling line again last night (I’m sorry, honey, but I had a bad time last night) to talk mainly about Alison. I don’t know how you’d feel about me contacting her. I’m not sure how to tell her how I feel – about her as well as about you. From what you have told me, I am so fond of her and I feel so sorry for her. I’ve got no idea of how she feels about me – I’m worried she may be unhappy with me because I said that I would come. Yeah, I’m also worried that you asked her to contact me and she just wasn’t able to do that so I am concerned for her.

I am worried about my package – worried about us moving and the package not making its way to us. I hoping it arrives safe and sound and soon – I’m also hoping that you ignored my refusal of Clayton’s autographed book. Honey, I am just not a greedy person – when you said you wanted to rededicate it and send it to me, I just felt that was too big a gesture on your part. Silly me, it’s sad the way I am sometimes but that is me. Just as you have very definite ideas about some things, so it is with me. I told Wozza that I was afraid that if we were together that we might fight but he says no, that strong people respect each other. But honey, I love you so much, I’d spoil the crap out of you. You’d just be wrapped up in love constantly, no matter what. And, ya, I can let go and wouldn’t have to have you by my side all the time – I’d want you to be out ‘doin’ what ya gotta do’ and having all the fun you deserve. My very special, much-loved honey.

And now I am going to bring up something fairly shocking (well, it will shock others but not you - I am sure it will please you). Honey, remember when you said that one day you’d be gone and that I should move on? Well, ya, somehow I have to. I cannot keep up this grieving, it just cannot go on like this. I need to be distracted – I need to meet somebody else. I know you won’t mind, in fact, it’s what you wanted. Can you, please, honey help me find somebody else? Somebody good to me like you were and fun and funny and interesting and educated and moral. You always, always, always tried to make things better for your friends and family – you put us all first and sometimes we didn’t even recognise that you had. And you had all these talents and skills! You were this Canuck superman and the funniest thing is that you were a complete SNAG while, at the same time, being a real man’s man. You have set the bar pretty high, my friend, and you will be a pretty hard act to follow. So there, if you get bored up there in Heaven, you’ve got your work cut out for you fixing your Susan up!

Keith, I love you with every heartbeat and I miss you so – especially around the time in the evening when we used to message or telephone. At those times, I think about what we had. When I go to bed at night, I look at your picture and think about what might have been. I promised you’d I’d be OK and I am, I’m just taking it very hard. Not knowing anything and you not really saying goodbye is making it fairly unbearable. Believe me – I WOULD NOT HAVE STOPPED YOU!!! I would have held your hand and helped you to reach out to Clayton. Yes, I am selfish but my love for you is stronger than my selfishness and I would have helped you and made sure you weren’t alone. You could have depended on me, Keith. Of everyone you know it was down to me – you should have trusted me more.

Well, there I go – sounding cranky again. But you know I’m not and you know I love you. I firmly believe that we were meant for each other, that we were walking on converging paths. You weren’t meant to get cancer (and a rare one at that), you weren’t supposed be taken away so soon. There were so many things you had to show me and I had so many things to share with you.

I’m thinking of travelling to BC in November. That way I can pick a huge armload of jacaranda blossoms and bring them to you – you wanted to see them so badly! If you were buried, well, that will be easy. But if you been cremated and your ashes scattered at that river site you mentioned well, I’ll have my work cut out for me – but don’t underestimate the tenacity of the woman [I’m sure I can hire some guide to take me there (I might even get a jetboat or hummer ride out of it!)]. I guess it all depends on whether I can get any info from Don or Alison ‘cuz if they decide not to share you with me, well, then I’m screwed. And what a shame that will be!

I just thought about that first long letter you wrote me (not that first short letter) and how very sweet and earnest you were. I should have known right then and there how special you were and paid more attention right from the beginning. Ya, you were born in the Year of the Boar (1959) but honey – I can’t remember the date!! I feel terrible I’ve forgotten and how many other things did I let slip away before I found out you meant the world to me???

My heart feels so heavy right now – just a weight in my chest like a stone – it’s the thing that keeps me from you. If only it would stop, we could be together [when you weren’t off fishing, riding motorcycles, fixing computers, taking photos, tying flies, shooting bear with arrows, shooting bucks with rifles, riding in pickups with ZZ Top up high, telling yarns with your friends, delighting your family, talking with your Dad and Grandpa, eating elk stew and shooting at "pecker-woodies" and "tree-rats" (and, bugger, I forgot your beloved sled)] whenever you had the time! Look, honey, I’ll be your very best buddy for always. I don’t know how long it will take before I get there but yours is the very first face I will look for. You are with me always and like your very last words to me "we’ll get together when we can" [9 February 2005].
I promise I am OK – you can’t worry about me because you earned your rest, sweetheart.

- love, Susan

March 29, 2005

Friday night, 25 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Keith – well your little honey is just about the grottiest ever in her whole life! Ick! Worked cleaning at the new house and on sorting for the garage sale. Warwick and I went ‘round the neighbourhood putting up signs and it’s been advertised in several newspapers.

This morning was a morning of birds. There were some pretty finches in the TV aerial and some bulbuls came along and tried to scare them away. In just a few minutes a flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos went over and later a flock of those silly lorikeets. You would have loved it. Bulbuls are not native – they were brought over from India as caged birds because they have a beautiful song. And then there’s all the feathers you could use for fly-tying!

God, I cried tonight. Awful. Will write Don tomorrow night and then I am going to start composing a letter to Alison. I can’t take this not knowing. I miss you so much and I am just floundering about – you wouldn’t let it happen to Sunny, would you?

Just remember, especially when I start to sound cranky like now, that I love you more than just about anything in my life. Honey, I would not have held you back, you didn’t need to worry about that – you were meant to feel that you could rely on me and lean on me. Honey, we had so much fun together and you always tried to look after me.

I had a big cry in the living room ‘cuz there in one of the big chairs is where I sat when you first rang me and within a week we will be out of this house and that memory will start to fade away. Yes, some things will fade away and some already have but I will always love you and treasure you and miss you.
Thanks for all the wonderful photos and memories which mean so very, very much to me –

- S.

Thursday evening, 24 March 2005 [10:30 p.m.]

Hi, my honey. Pretty awful day today but Wozza and I got a lot of yard work done at the new house. You wouldn’t believe the size of the pile of rubbish we piled up next to the curb. The landlord was supposed to have the place cleaned up before we moved in but I am starting to think it’s not going to happen. Warwick’s idea was that if we made the place look as if someone was there, it would be less likely that whoever is breaking in to the house and smoking and screwing and whatever in the yard would find somewhere else to go. Anyway, my hair is filthy, I got dirt all over a good Macintosh t-shirt of mine [ ;-( ] , my fingernails are awful and I’m tired. And it starts all over again at 8 a.m. tomorrow.

Sat on the bed reading awhile after dinner while Warwick used the computer. And, of course, I spent some time looking at your photo. It’s not possible for me to miss you any more than I do. Thanks for being you, honey, you were so good to me: "guess what, no one loves ya more for sure". I believe it ‘cuz you said it – do you believe it about me?

‘night, my love.

- Susan

Wednesday night, 23 March 2005 [7:30 p.m.]

Hello, my honey.

Awful day today. Cried buckets for an hour at Dr. Ross’ office and I have to say, he was pretty cool. Most people don’t want to hear anything I have to say about you or me or us but he listens to everything.

I paid the bond on the new house and two weeks rent and then went over there. What a mess! Someone had broken in to the back part of the house and there were condoms (!), food wrappers and scraps and a bong in the bathroom. Oh, yeah – some charmer had puked in the sink. The bathroom is so mouldy, everything is dirty and horrible. Oh, yeah, I couldn’t find the electricity meter and when I rang back to the agency they said it was in the attached shop and that I couldn’t block it off because the meter would have to be read four times a year. That’s where we were going to put the ‘fridge (partly as a way to block off the shop so no one could get in that way and partly as a way to best use the space in the kitchen).

K, hon, not going to bore you anymore with my unenviable plight. You’ve just been through your own suffering and you deserve to have some bloody peace, especially from me. But, God damn it, I miss you so very, very much. I just read your "Bucktailing" article again.

No contact, no package. Worried what might happen to the parcel when we leave here as the Post Office doesn’t deliver small packages, they are all delivered by subcontractors, who I hope get a copy of our forwarding order.

Got to go – just waiting for the police to ring who are going to meet me over at the "new" house.

I’ll write later – want to tell you about a dream I had.

- Susan

P.S.: I have just re-read the second letter that you sent me (the first one was all of three and a bit lines long!). Keith, you were so nice in that letter – I don’t know how to explain it: you were caring, respectful, eager, funny. I should have known you’d reel me in hook, line and sinker sooner or later! "Tight lines" my main man.

March 28, 2005

Tuesday night, 22 March 2005 [11:15 p.m.]

Hey, ya, Keith!

Spoke to Rick on the phone last night and he thinks that I should go ahead and write Alison now. I tried to explain how I feel that the poor thing should be left to grieve for both you and your Dad without being pestered. Then, incredibly, when I went to see my doctor today, she said the very same thing. She doesn’t believe that Don will ever contact me, which is a shame if it’s true. Well, I said that I’d give him a month and that gives me four more days. Alison, I don’t know – I said I’d give her six months before I tried, I just don’t know what to do. It scares me what she might think of me and I worry about how deeply this is affecting her. See – I’m helpless – can’t fix you, can’t fix Alison. I also wonder what you’d think of me writing her – I think you’d be OK with it ‘cuz I think your opinion would be that it was up to Alison.

Missed you a lot today, cried a bit from time to time. I’ll tell you what – tears work magic on cleaning a keyboard! But they aren’t doing any favours for my skin – my face looks terrible from crying.

Needless to say, no email, no package. Honey, that’s a damned shame – I know it must not have been easy for you to organise it for me when you were so sick and you meant for me to have it. I really, really hope it comes soon – I am starting to worry about it being addressed to this house and not to the new one even though we will have a forwarding order at the Post Office. Sweetie, thank you so much for sending it to me – you mean the world to me and that was a nice, nice thing for you to have done. I just wish that the mob up in BC would realise that it was something that you wanted to happen and would grant your wishes in this in spite of whatever feelings they may have about me.

Going to go get ready for bed a bit earlier that usual – being strung out isn’t helping me cope very well.

Hope I dream about you again tonight. As much love as you can handle is on its way to you –

- S.

Tuesday night, 22 March 2005 [10:45 p.m.]

Got into bed late again last night. I laid on my side and thought about you. I swear you were there with me and I could even feel the weight of you. I thought about a dimension of you that I had never thought of before. It was sweet, sad, sacred. I hope I never forget it. [I wish I had been your last.]

- S.

Another cheeky lorikeet from Australia

Rainbow lorikeet

Monday night, 21 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Hello, my big, sweet, strong man. Yeah, I guess 'cuz you insisted on it, I always see you like you were in 2002 and in June 2004 with your big strong shoulders and your beautiful eyes. Never sick – I’ve got a couple of pictures of you over the winter when you weren’t looking your best but that’s not what I focus on – I always picture you well. God, I love you so.

Been hearing lots of lorikeets lately, especially around the grounds of our Campus as it is planted with native trees and the lorikeets go for the nectar. They are always in pairs or flocks and always call out to each other, even when flying along. They chatter constantly and are so colourful and funny. They always make me think of you – partly because I am sure you would like to see and hear them. And they remind me of you because they are colourful, they like to talk, they have an opinion on everything, they make me laugh and I get a big smile on my face just like you used to put on my face every time we talked. You were the very, very best. Thank you for your gift of yourself that you gave to me.

Ya, I’m down but I’m better today than I was. Not really able to "live life with no holding back" or work on my Promises just yet but, I promise you faithfully, Keith, I will, as soon as I can, I will.

I sign the lease on the new house on the 24th; we’re having a garage sale on the 26th and have to be out of here by the 30th. Have to organise everything [locksmith, glazier, truck (my POS car is just a weeny hatch), etc.] including the internet service. Not sure how long I’ll be "off the air". Oh, yeah, nothing from Don and no parcel yet, either.

I am grieving so much for you and there are people who think it’s just out of proportion considering how long we were together and the nature of our relationship. And, ya, part of that’s because of who I am and how I react to things – I have been devastated by the loss of dearly loved pets and when I was little I used to get upset by sad stories. But, as I have said before, your death has affected me more than the loss of my mother and my father and my three sisters. I don’t know why and I am sorry that you had to worry about hurting me like you did when you realised what an intense person I am. I try to put the whole thing in perspective – I mean I started this "Swept Away" blog because of my reaction to the Asian tsunami. For God’s sake, there were people who lost their homes, their livelihood, their children, their families, everything in an instant with no warning. I knew about your cancer from the beginning and you gave me the chance (several times) to walk away. You were so sweet and so polite in your very first letter to me, you just grew on me and I just started to care more and more for you. Until, in the end, you started to care for me, too.

Well, it’s all over (except for the Promises) and I (as well as your friends and family) am left to mourn you as best I can. I will never stop love you and missing you and I look forward to the time when we can be together.

You are always with me –

- S.

March 27, 2005

Sunday night, 20 March 2005 [midnight]

Hello, dearest, it’s me. Just got in from looking for the stars – there were only four showing plus Venus. But that’s enough for us to be together, isn’t it?

Today has been very mixed – at one point while I was sorting I had to run into the house, I honestly felt like I could commit suicide. It was a terrible feeling. I almost rang a crisis line but then I decided not to. You’d probably think that was crap but if ya need it, ya need it. But tonight has been sooo much better. I actually talked to Warwick about you and didn’t get choked up and weepy. He thinks, from the sounds of it, that you and I would be good for each other and would suit each other well. It’s nice for him to be grown and be able to talk to him like an adult. I am so sorry you didn’t have that sort of a rapport with your son, but you tried and in the end it was up to him. I’m afraid he will regret it one day – no, I know he will regret it as stories about you filter through and he realises what he has missed out on. I don’t, at all, want him to feel bad about your relationship, it’s just that I think that, in time, he will.

OK, my big old buddy, I love you, don’tcha know it? Yearning for you every moment –

- Susan

Sunday evening, 20 March 2005 [7:00 p.m.]

Hello, my sweetheart. Sitting here, crying, trying to look up some old friends using Google. Found all these letters and pictures while going through my stuff, I even found a letter that I had written when I was 13. Let me tell you, I was a total sook back then, too!

I have found the maker [Savage (wasn’t that who you said you thought made it?)] and serial number of my Mom’s gun. Keith, I am so sorry I couldn’t have organised to have it sent to you. And, ya, it has an open sight like your Grandpa’s gun. You could have had it there and kept it and maybe let me use it when I came to visit. I am so sorry we missed our time together, I think we would have made a pretty good team. I’m pretty sure the more you got to know me the more you would have loved me. Anyway, now I have found the details about the gun I will have some leverage to get it back from my extremely miserable and odious brother (whom, I suspect, wouldn’t even know what odious means).

All for now –

- love, Susan

Sunday afternoon, 20 March 2005 [10:30 a.m.]

‘morning, honey. I just wanted to let you know that last night when I went to bed I didn’t cry at all. It did take me a lot longer to fall asleep but I finally did and no tears. Thank you for your strength. And, I must say, the incredible courtesy you have always shown me. Love –

- Susan

Saturday night, 19 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Hey, there, honey. Today was exactly the kind of day you didn’t want me to have. I thought of you constantly, I cried heaps. At one point I just went and got in bed with your picture and sobbed and sobbed. I feel like a dumb animal – no memory, mute and helpless. There must be a way out of this but I don’t know how. Somehow your telling me that you loved me has made it all worse – I guess I could stand it better if I thought it was just me that was missing out. And, by your request, I wasn’t there for you at the end like I should have been.

I’ve often thought about your first two letters to me and how polite and sweet you were. I don’t even know why you wrote me at all. But I’m glad you did and I hope to hell you are too. And I wish to hell you had never, ever said, "I am so sorry". Of all people, I am the last that you would ever need to say that to.

No stars tonight and nothing from Canada. My heart is shattered into a million pieces and I don’t know how it will ever be mended. I cry so often and think of you constantly – surprisingly, you have become almost like a burden or a heavy weight – you, the man who tried to lift me up and teach me to fly. It is so sad. It cannot go on like this, Keith, as strong as I am I cannot take this. You must find a way to help me. Please help them to contact me so I can have some relief from this. I have borne a lot in my life, a lot, lot more than you know, but I cannot take this. Please, honey, please. (Here I am, the one who tried not to ask you for anything, reduced to begging.)

- S.

Saturday morning, 19 March 2005 [10:00 p.m.]

Keith – Woke up to a brilliant, cool Australian autumn day. I looked at your picture and thought about your fly tying and your articles and the way you lived your life. I have such a hunger to know everything about you. Remember when you said how I could honour you in my life: "Well, as long as you honor me with living with what I believe in and that is a great life without holding back" (1 February 2005). I’m not sure that I really know how to do that right now, I think that all this terrible grieving is holding me back.

So where does that bring me? Somehow, some way I have to let you go. To love you, to acknowledge you, to honour you, to keep my promises to you but to somehow let you go. I don’t know how to let you go and there are all these loose ends and unfinished stories. I don’t understand how Ken could know so much about you and I and our relationship and then just turn and walk away from me without a word (unless, of course, you asked him to and I think it would have been wrong of you to do that). If you did ask Ken not to contact me well then he won’t because I know he will honour any promises he made to you. Honey, he was such a good friend to you and helped you so much – and you were such a bloody handful, you rascal!

You probably would tell me not to worry about it, but I worry what the people at 108 and your family thinks about me. Don’s email said "Susan… you were spoken very highly of and he cared so much for you…" (18 February 2005); well, do people get that? Doesn’t that mean I deserve something – some consideration, some contact? I wasn’t a leech, I didn’t take from you (well, except for your hat!), I made no demands. All I ever tried to do was to help you enjoy your life and, in doing so, I enjoyed mine. And now I miss you so badly. God, it is so, so awful and I thank you for your attempts to shield me from this – thank you, Grizz, for looking after your Tiger.

I don’t think I can even begin to let go until I have heard from Don and until after I have received the package that you had sent. I wish I could forget all about them until their arrival was a pleasant surprise but right now I look out for them constantly. I am going to try and see if I can figure out who Ken is – scares me that one time you put his name in quotes – if his first name isn’t Ken or Kenneth (or however it’s spelled) I won’t have a prayer of finding him. But I found Alison’s address, didn’t I – that’s why I’m highly regarded as a research assistant at the Uni – I’m like a ferret at digging through information.

Time to get ready for the gym – they are only open until 1:00 p.m. on Saturday mornings. Hope I won’t cry there, I have been such a blubbering idiot lately.

Mountains of love headed your way, Grizz –

- Susan

P.S.: LOL! I remembered something today that I forgotten – "Mrs. Five-Star" – LOL!

Friday night, 18 March 2005 [8:00 p.m.]

Back from the gym. While I was there I got to thinking about how I am beating myself up for not being able to "fix it". When Warwick was very small he cried a lot. I’d turn myself inside out trying to find out what was wrong: was he wet, had an earache, sore tummy, needed a nap, hungry, wanted a snuggle, what? I felt so useless. I feel that way about you – I want to fix everything up. I want to make you well, I want to bring you back. I only want one more hour, one more sentence, one more phone call, one more email if you are going to be well. Only if you’re well. I want you back with your sisters and brothers and your kids and Mom and nephews and nieces and all your friends. If I could change places with you, I would. I’m older and I only have one brother left and he wouldn’t miss me anyway. It would be hard on Warwick but he’s tough and he’d get by. All my nieces have their own families and the people at work would get over it fairly quickly.

You knew I’d take it hard, didn’t you? And you tried to push me away so I wouldn’t get hurt. But towards the end you started to depend on me and care for me and that only made me closer to you. Keith, I miss you so very, very much.

I’ve come to question just about everything (everything but you) but I firmly believe that when I die I will see you. I want to meet your Dad and Grandpa (remember how you said how much like him you were and I said that in that case I’d love him, too?). I’m sure he could teach this old Michigander a thing or two. And Clayton, of course. (Who has Clayton’s daughter’s blanket now, Keith?) And I’ll get my Mom over to see you and I know she approve of you 110% (just keep those tatts covered, ok?). And then I just want us to go off on our own for a while and just spend some time together, just us. We can do what ever you like – scare me sh*tless with your Hummer driving or you can teach me to cast (I am, like, so hopeless at it!) or go jet boating or we can go hiking or, yes!, whitewater rafting, yes!, that’s what we’ll do! We can hold each other tight and you’ll never be in pain or sick again. We can spend all the time together we never got to spend and catch up on everything. It makes me sad that you never got to see those photos of me that I had here for you – we missed out on so many things. I hope I die soon ‘cuz I don’t want to spend any more time apart. Well, wait – that sounds terrible! I made you some promises and I have to be here to keep them. Damn it, honey, I miss you so. I want you back. I want our time together. I want you to spend more time with my son (he loved Bill’s article, BTW). I want you to tell me again that you love me. I want you to be happy and I’d do just about anything to make that happen. Ya, we had a lot of fun and we were good buddies. I’m so glad that we met in spite of everything. As I said in my Valentine, "There are no regrets, only love."

‘bye my sweetheart…

- S.

Friday evening, 18 March 2005 [6:00 p.m.]

Treasure, you’re my treasure. I met you, I admired you, I loved you, I lost you.

Today has been terrible, one of the worst. I have cried and cried and cried. Cried in the supermarket even. I am missing you more each day. Honey, it was awful – we didn’t get to do the things we wanted to do. You wanted to travel and I was so excited about our trip! And then you got sicker and that was it. For the record I am just going to point out here that when you invited me to go to Korea and were thinking about coming to Australia I initially refused to go saying that you should be spending the money on your kids and not on me. But you said that they were provided for and I agreed to go. I put that here in case any of your friends or family ever reads this they won’t think of me as a bloody golddigger or something. God knows what they think as no one has bothered to contact me. Which makes it hard to find that elusive "closure" (God, I hate that word).

OK, I’m going to bring it up – it’s been in the back of my mind and I’m going to address it. Sex. You were so sweet when you replied to me and I know that neither of us had any expectations whatsoever about our friendship when we met. We were just acquaintances and then we became good mates (in the Australian sense). I fell in love with you long before you did with me. And I used to want sometimes just to crawl into bed with you at night and feel your back up against mine and my arm around your neck or you holding me. Rarely ever about sex although I doubt that I would have refused if that was something that you would have wanted. I’m pretty sure you didn’t think about me that way but then who knows – after all, you’re the one that called men pigs and more than once, too. We hedged around the corners a few times – when I knew you about two weeks you made it clear that your house had a spare bedroom. And we talked about prostitutes a couple of times. So, hon, it was your call and I don’t know if you ever thought about it or not. I guess you would have but I really can’t say. Rest assured I didn’t need to fly all the way to Canada to get laid. And I never did really figure out the Lavalife deal.

Anyway, I’ve stopped crying and I guess I won’t embarrass myself at the gym so it’s off to the weights, the machines and the cardio stuff.

Miss you like food, water, light and air –

- always yours, Susan.

P.S.: You might not have had a piece of my ass in your life but you’re getting one in mine – I have decided to get a tattoo, probably on my butt or hip, that has your initials in it. Not sure what else: tiger? bear? rainbow (as in trout)? and not sure if Australian artists can come up with the goods or even where to go. There was a tattoo place near here but it has closed and don’t know of any others. If I knew the place that did yours I’d come over and get mine done there. I will make it over there eventually, you know. This is the point where it would have been good to know which School District you worked for because you probably would have gotten your tatts done near there – who knows?

March 26, 2005

Friday morning, 18 March 2005 [8:45 a.m.]

My Keith –

Woke up early this morning with no alarm and no outside sounds and I found myself snuggled up to you cub picture. So I just lay there for awhile and held you and thought – about you and Alison and your house and all your hunting and fishing buddies. Jeez, I don’t know what to think sometimes – I don’t think that you ever lied to me but then there are discrepancies (like with April’s name in your Dad’s obituary) and, sh*t, I don’t know what to think. All compounded by the big silence from BC. You know I value honesty and that I was always 100% honest with you – even though I sort of wish now I hadn’t told you about my illnesses – that gave just one more thing for you to worry about.

Our relationship was pretty much all about you and I am OK with that. You were dying and your needs were greater than mine were (besides I got a hell of a kick out of the time that we spent together). So if were spent our time talking about your family and your friends and your pictures that was fun for us both. But it did mean that you didn’t get to know me as well as I know you. And you could be so private about things – I know you talked a bit to Ken and to Don and to some other of your friends but I am sure they never (except maybe for Ken) got much more than a glimpse of what our relationship was like. And that’s fine if that’s what you wanted. But it’s the reason, I think, that no one is including me in any celebration or mourning for your life. Grizz, it is very, very hard for me.

Out of everyone I feel the most for Alison – she almost feels like my sister. She lost you and she lost her Dad in so short a time and I know she spends time with your Mother – Alzheimer’s is a very cruel disease. You were OK with your Mom thinking you were your own nephew when you visited her but some people can’t handle that sort of thing so well. Anyway, Alison is in my thoughts even though I am sure she has no idea that many, many good wishes are on their way to her from Australia everyday.

Colleen? Well, I couldn’t give a stuff. You didn’t want to talk about it so we didn’t talk about it – I could care less. If anyone from the Abbotsford mob or the 108 Mile mob read this and are horrified, well, stiff. Keith, you called the shots on this one (like on so many things – LOL!) and I went along. I only know three things – you were no longer together when we met, you must have been legally married at the time of your Dad’s death and I have at least one photo here that Colleen took. That’s it, zip, end of story. Well, there is one other thing and that’s for my private heart to keep because I know you were very sick at the time you said it and it was only because your defences were down, I think, that it came out. Honey, I know you were hurting about it and I know there was very little I could do about it except to offer you my love and my acceptance and my support. You had all that by the bucket load, as much (or as little) as you wanted.

Well, the tears have started up again. No bloody wonder, I haven’t had my morning coffee yet and you know us two aren’t the best without our caffeine (thank you again, Alison, for your cross-stitch – Keith loved it and I love the photo I have of it).

Missing you, Grizz, so very much –

- S.

P.S.: Last night while Warwick and I were sorting and packing I found some winter clothes. So I guess that I would have been all right on the bus from Vancouver and up at 108.

Thursday night, 17 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Hey ya, honey. Got to bed really, really late last night so I won’t write much tonight. I guess ‘cuz I read so much about you late last night, I dreamed about you all night long. Printed out Bill’s article and Wozza has had a read and is (like me) very impressed. As time goes on Warwick seems to be getting more disappointed that his visit to you didn’t work out. Ditto.

As time goes on I seem to love you more and miss you more. I thought you’d be wearing off a bit by now. Poor Keith, his tiger woman is just as intense as ever.

Oh, no package and no email from Don. It sucks.

Well, that’s all from me tonight, Fat Fingers (LOL!)! Enjoy your rest –

- Susan

early Thursday morning, 17 March 2005 [1:00 p.m.]

Well, Keith, you did a lot of trolling, didn’t you? Well, I’ve been trolling, too, and I’ve met Hans and the Fly Anglers OnLine and who knows what. Found Alison’s address today, too (never, ever think of me as dumb or unresourceful) and your Dad’s obituary (and I was so surprised your father passed away so recently, I’m not sure why I thought it was further back in time). Of course I read your comments on Colleen in your bucktailing article but then that was in 2002. Was that you and Mike in the Bass Comp.? Damn, I have soooo many questions for you. Ya, and what’s the deal with ‘April’ – you said that was your daughter’s name, but there are no April in your Dad’s obituary. I wonder, I really do.

Well, now it’s gotten to be about twenty after two in the morning and I’ve just been reading Bill B’s article about his trip with you in September 2001. He certainly had a good time and I was jealous! Roaring around in a Hummer indeed!

Honey, it’s late and I’ve got to go. We’ll talk tomorrow –

- S.

March 25, 2005

Wednesday morning, 16 March 2005 [10:30 p.m.]

Conspiracy theory. Yup, that’s almost what I reckon. Tried to call "Loomis" at 108 Post Office only to find that the Postmaster is Lisa and that "Loomis" is a courier service. Lisa can’t trace the parcel, she says that I have to contact the person who sent it and get them to check. So who sent it? And did they send it on the 18th as Don said? I am going to wait one month from when I last wrote Don (I last wrote him on the 26th February) and I will then write him again. I don’t care if he does think I’m a pain in the a$$. At what point does rude morph into cruel?

Oddly enough Lisa said that your postal box had not been closed and there was no forwarding order for it. Strange when so many other aspects of your life have been obliterated – so who is clearing your postal box and what are they doing with your mail? In fact, the weirdest thing was that I almost got the impression that your name wasn’t the one on the PO box. Hmmm.

Have to work on the packing/sorting today. Brought some work home only to find that my version of Excel is older than the University’s so I can’t continue. Bummer.

Your picture means so much to me today – getting a lot of comfort from it looking down at me. Thanks for all your help…

- love, Susan

March 24, 2005

early Wednesday morning, 16 March 2005 [2:00 a.m.]

Keith – I’ve been feeling a bit angry with you from time to time the last couple of days about things I think you should or shouldn’t have done. Just now I sat on the edge of the bed feeling hurt and disregarded and then I looked at your picture with the baby tiger cub. Honey, the love, the goodness, the steadiness, the peace just flows out of you. You were so good to all of us – it’s only that I am hurting and I miss you so that I am getting cross with you. And the late nights don’t help.

I’ve decided, and I don’t care who gives a damn, in the morning when I wake up I am going to call Loomis and ask about my parcel. You go ahead and try and stop me! You are, as you yourself said, "on the wrong side of the grass"! [Hope that elicited a chuckle.]

All my love –

- Susan

Tuesday evening, 15 March 2005 [9:00 p.m.]

Hey ya, dude. Nice sunset tonight – I could see if from the gym that is up on the second floor and the front of the building is all glass. The sun was fiery orange and after it set the sky glowed with the same intense colour you see in campfire embers.

Today was very weird. I looked up at your photos above my desk at work and felt so empty. Today I found myself looking at that photo of you with the spring salmon that you got on the Kitimat. I love everything about that photo: the setting, the wet stones in the foreground that reflect the light, your waders, your purple jumper (sweater to you North Americans), the scissors ready to coax out the fishhook, your Sage hat, your calm look of happiness and pride. (Damn it to hell - I even love your fat fingers gripping the fish's tail!) I find myself wanting to be the person who took the photo and wondering who it was. You look so steady and at peace in that photo – did you know then what was to come?

I got to thinking about your wanting me to lead a positive life. Sometimes I’m not sure if I know what that means. I know when you’d press me about it I’d hold up my experiences of working in remote Alaska, of working on the Great Barrier Reef and the Gulf of Papua, my travels and my up and moving to Australia. I guess you felt that I was always living in the past and not the future – that I wasn’t forward-thinking. I dunno. Now I’ll never know.

The knowledge that you’re no longer in the world makes everything so very, very hard. And no package and no letters from anyone. Every morning when I wake up, I run to the PC to see if there’s an email from Don. When I get home from work I check the mailbox and on the front porch to see if the package has come. Then I rush in the door to check my Inbox again. Nothing, not a word. I am not sure how long I should wait to write Don again – I am afraid of pissing him off. I told him in the last letter that he could tell me to F-off if he wanted but he hasn’t even done that. I really don’t know what to think. I think everybody (you included) is trying to hide info from me and, ya know, it doesn’t sit very well. How do you think you’d feel if the situation was reversed, eh?

Honey, my heart is well and truly broken and no amount of looking at the stars or at your pictures is making things very much better. Time, I guess, is the only thing that is going to help. For now I just miss you heaps and am, at least, happy that you don’t have to put up with those awful symptoms you were having to deal with. There is that. There is at least that. Missing you –

- Susan

March 23, 2005

Monday night, 14 March 2005 [10:15 p.m.]

Hello, my very best buddy.

I have been upset all day today. Not only am I heartsick, I feel nervous and queasy and sick to my stomach. I am wishing that I had never told you that I was sick. I only told you because it was my way of telling you that it was OK that you were sick and that wasn’t going to put me off or make me decide that I didn’t want to get to know you. I’m just afraid that my being sick might have coloured your reaction to me and made you think of me as more fragile than I really am.

Still no parcel, still no email from Don or anyone else. No wonder I feel like sh*t.

I’ve become alarmed lately about the way you organised your last days. I just don’t know, it may just be the product of an over-active mind but I’ve had a glimpse of a possible scenario and I don’t like the way it makes me feel. I can’t say that I blame you – not at all – I knew you and I knew your opinion on a lot of things and with no feedback from Canada I am only left to imagine. All I can say is that, if things weren’t quite random, you should have called to say goodbye. I know I’m an intense tiger and that made you draw back sometimes but I’ve been tested by many a fire and am just that much stronger. Ya, I’m emotional about you and grieving (and that’s only because I love you) but that doesn’t mean that I’m not OK and it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t handle anything you had to say to me.

Keith, you did a great job with your life – you had fun, you had friends, you loved nature, you were right-minded. You lived life to the full with no holding back. You were a role model for all of us. With many, many tears, you are sorely and deeply missed. All my love –

- Susan

Monday morning, 14 March 2005 [9:45 a.m.]

I woke up having the most awful thoughts – wishing I had an "Off" button so I didn’t have to love you anymore. That you weren’t so right for me, that you didn’t love me back, that I could make the pain go away (yours and mine). Yeah, I am suffering as you said I would and it is so awful. I am lost, lost, lost. Nothing from Canada yet, nothing and it only makes it worse. I get to play the role of the disregarded, unofficial, far-flung friend. Nobody looks out for me, I have to do it all by myself. Everything seems to be falling away. I even called this blog "Swept Away" and it is too true – you have been swept away from me forever. No, you can’t come back, but, I swear, if I could make some deal with God or the devil to bring you back and bring you back fit and well, I would do it. Even if one of the conditions meant that I could never have contact with you again – just to know you were in the world would be enough. Your friends and family could have you back and you could go on being the special, complex, stubborn, multi-talented man that you are.

I love you and I miss you and I surely have cried a million tears in the month you have been gone. You are never far from my thoughts. If only I could hold you and feel your breath on my neck, if only you could talk to me and inspire me and give me a kick in the a$$. I am trying to keep the promises I made to you but right now I am so very depressed – you were a rudder in my life and now I am tossed on a sea of grief that seems dark and endless. Please try to part the clouds and let some sunlight shine into my life. Please, honey, I need you now even more than before.

- S.

Sunday night, 13 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Keith – 4:45 in the night in Canada and by now, I am sure, you would be gone.

We had a lovely neighbour when we lived up in Townsville – her name was Margie and she was a teacher. She gave Warwick a book for Easter – a famous children’s book in Australia: "Possum Magic". There were so many parents and students and friends that loved her but she was killed in a car accident in Far North Queensland. She had made a positive difference in the world and is missed by many – just as you are.

It’s that old "only the good die young" thing, isn’t it? Why you were taken and why you had to suffer, I just don’t know. What I do know is that, for the most part, you had a wonderful life and you leave a hole in our lives and in our hearts that will never be filled.

I have thought of you constantly today and several times had to stop in our sorting and packing just to steady myself. But I do believe that if I had been there I would not have held you back but would, instead, have helped you to reach out and take Clayton’s hand in yours so you could follow him. You had earned your rest, sweetheart.

Now have fun up there and if there’s any hot babes, just go for it – you know I wouldn’t hold you back. Just remember me from time to time and throw a little help our way if you can arrange to pull any strings.

I cannot begin to describe how much I miss you. All my considerable love –

- S.

March 22, 2005

Sunday afternoon, 13 March 2005 [3:00 p.m.]

K. - Honey, it’s almost exactly 8:00 p.m. Saturday evening, 12 March in Canada. Exactly one month ago you had your friends over to your house and I know you told stories and looked at photos. How I wish I could have been there! You died in the night that night, all alone, as you wished.

You’ve left so many of us missing you – we keep will you in our hearts and in our minds.

I will miss you for as long – longer! – as that star will shine, Keith. I am lost without you –

- your Susan

Saturday night, 12 March 2005 [10:15 p.m.]

My sweetie. Found some old posters from the sixties and among them was one that said:

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." – Goethe

Well, you have had a huge influence on my life, in spite of the short time that we knew each other. Thank you for every second of our time together – all the more precious because they were too few.

I love you every minute of every goddamned day I have to exist without you.

- Susan

Saturday afternoon, 12 March 2005 [2:30 p.m.]

Oh, Keith! Honey, I miss you so much.

Warwick and I have been working on going through the stuff in the garage in preparation for the move – so much stuff I’d forgotten and you never knew: working in Alaska and the Gulf of Papua, trips to the Caribbean, U.S.S.R., Bali, etc., letters from all over. Among them the letter my mother wrote on 20th September 1991 – three days before she died. I received it after she died – just like I’ll receive the package you arranged to have sent to me after your death. I’m going to keep my Mom’s letter with yours when it arrives – since I love you both so much it would be only fitting.

Too upset to write any more – I’ll write later tonight.

- Susan

early Saturday night, 12 March 2005 [2:30 a.m.]

My dearest Keith – it’s 2:30 in the morning – what am I doing still out of bed? I just can’t seem to get to bed anymore until after 1:30 a.m. at the earliest. Your ‘night-owl-ness’ has rubbed off on me. ‘member when you couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night and you’d ‘phone or message me and Ken never knew – LOL! Miss you like oxygen. It’s hard going on, it’s hard facing everything without you. The most special thing (next to my son) in my whole life and you’re gone.

I watched "Dances with Wolves" tonight and I’m pretty sure you would have liked it. Kevin Costner’s reddish beard reminded me of yours before you shaved it off.

I downloaded my music library on to the iPod but I haven’t yet figured out how to select from my Playlists – I’ve got a few: Acoustic, World, Fatboy Slim, Classical/Opera – and then there’s my special one: it’s called "Songs for Keith" and, of course, "Rough Boy" is in there.

It’s the twelfth – a month ago I should have been on the plane. And I would have made it to you in time, just in time.

OK, I’m getting upset and it’s far too late. Luckily, I don’t have to work tomorrow. I’ll write again later today.

Missing you so very, very much.

- S.

P.S.: Last night when I went to bed and held you photo, my eyes swam with tears. Looking at you through my tears, your image shimmered and swam. It began to look like a colour negative – the effect was strange and eerie. It was mesmerising and I held on to the picture frame and stared at your image for a long time – I couldn’t take my eyes away.

Friday night, 11 March 2005 [10:30 p.m.]

My dear friend - Hi, honey. Boy, today was crap. I am not even going to go on about it.

But tonight I got this great ice cream bar that they have here (Weis’ bars – this one was mango, cream and macadamia nuts) and went out in the yard and just ate it looking up at the stars. Just to be with you. At some stage I’ll have to learn the Australian constellations besides the Southern Cross.

Listening to music ATM. Got a ton of books out of the Library but haven’t been reading them much. Watched "The Rookie" again last night – I’m sure you like the quote "It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!". Also wondered about your opinion of the scene with Clint Eastwood and the long-haired chick. Hmmm. And you call men pigs!

No, your Sage hat has not arrived. No letters/emails from Canada, either. Don’t know what to do. I really, really am starting to feel hurt. I have made up every explanation I can for the lack but you know it’s so easy to misconstrue things. Like when you weren’t writing and I got pissed off and it turned out you were sick. Well, you and I always were honest and tried, always, to do the right thing. If you told them not to write, well I guess you had your reasons. I will never understand if that’s the case.

Honey, this is just not a good time for me right now – I am going to close and I’ll see you later.

All my love, no matter what –

- Susan

March 21, 2005

Thursday night, 10 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Hi, honey, it’s me again.

Bit of a weird day today: looked at two houses for rent, went to lunch with two people from the School, had a meeting that went on for ages, got practically nothing done. Picked up Warwick after work and took him to look at the houses and decided to take the cheap one. Argued with him about moving – his ideas are totally different to mine. Missed out on going to the gym tonight. Tomorrow I will draw up a bit of a budget and see if I can make an appointment at the bank to get a personal loan. Not sure what I will do if they say "no".

On the way home from work there was a large flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos on the side of Olympic Drive – I haven’t seen so many together in a long, long time. At first they looked like huge blossoms in the trees and then they flapped their wings any you knew they were cockies. My first thought was to try and find a place to pull over and park so I could take some photos for you ‘cuz I knew you’d enjoy seeing them – and then the realisation that I have nowhere to send them to. I do so miss you.

The iPod arrived this morning – I’m sorry but I can’t remember if I told you about it. I ordered directly from Apple (instead of from the Apple University shop) so I was able to get it laser engraved. It says, " ‘You can never fail if you never quit.’ Keith " – right there, right on my iPod! I know you would be pleased if you knew. Your motto, your music, your name right there with me. Now is a really bad time to have bought it because I really need the money for the security deposit and the move, etc. but I couldn’t resist.

The house is really cute and really horrible at the same time. Little old fashioned Victorian-style timber house but it has been divided down the middle (we sure hope the guy next door doesn’t play his TV loud – I might have to retaliate with ZZ Top – LOL!). It has lots of coloured glass. The yard is a mess. Lots of broken glass, lots of trash in the yard (tyres and wheels, a rusted photocopier, tree branches). Inside is horrible – the carpet in the tiny bedroom has a huge burn mark in the centre of the carpet – charming. Kitchen is filthy – cupboards are dark brown frames with orange doors and they are dirty. Bathroom is a mess – mouldy ceiling, broken toilet seat and lid. No room for cosmetics, etc. There is a front verandah with large coloured glass windows that slide open. Pressed tin ceilings. Fireplace. The place is a dump but it is cute and will need a lot of work. I eventually want to paint the bathroom and the kitchen – at least the cupboards. I know how much you loved your kitchen with it’s island bench and big sliding door to the deck – well you would be horrified if you saw where we are going to be living! And the stove is electric – I HATE electric stoves.

You are never going to come and live with me or help me; I am never going to get to come and live with you. I am renting this place because it is the cheapest place I have seen and it’s cute. The neighbourhood worries me a bit – it is rumoured that there is a fair bit of drug use around.

Oh, dear – I just got off the ‘phone with the Auburn police. The officer was very nice but basically said that was a bad area with lots of robberies, home invasions (!!), car theft, drug use, etc. Imagine not being able to leave the back door open on a summer evening for fear some junkie will come barging in. She suggested I go and have a talk to the neighbours and see what they are like and get a feel for the place. Bugger – what to do? I know you believe in the power of positive thinking and I am trying to put a positive spin on this. Bloody hell – I really thought the Year of the Rooster was going to be better for Wozza and I.

Rats – it’s almost 1 a.m. again and I have to go to bed – I just am not getting enough sleep lately. And, since you asked, I haven’t gotten anything from Canada, by post or by email. I am trying very hard to be patient (but look where it got me the last time I tried to be patient – I put off ‘phoning you and we never made contact again).

Only one star tonight to wish upon but that’s all I need – if only by wishing I could have you back and make you well. Please watch over Warwick and I – we need a guardian angel.

Goodnight, Grizz –

- love, Tiger Woman

March 20, 2005

Wednesday night, 9 March 2005 [11:30 p.m.]

Wednesday night, 9 March 2005 [11:30 p.m.]Hi, hon. I dragged a chair out to the backyard tonight to spend a bit of time with the stars and with you but there were lots of clouds so it will have to wait for another night. Not a lot of tears today but lots last night when I went in my room and sat on the side of the bed with your picture and talked to you. Weepy right now and missing you so much. No, nothing from Don and no package.

I am miserable and there are dramas finding a new house. I am trying, trying to put a positive spin on things like you would want me to do but I am struggling to say the least. There were a couple of times when you weren’t as positive as I thought you’d be (and who could blame you when you were so sick?). You said that you’d only ever had bad relationships with women – well, what about me? Honey, I turned myself inside out trying to be good to you. And men – twice you said that men are pigs – at least that time I just wouldn’t accept that from you. Both times we were talking about prostitutes and you said that men are pigs because they go to them. Well, I just don’t believe that – I just believe that men and women’s natures are very different. I hoped you would have seen a prostitute while you were in Mexico because I think you needed that. You told me when you got back that you weren’t "in to it" but I think you were too sick then and that’s why you only stayed a couple of days in Cabo. Poor Jimmi and Bruno – I think they were really looking forward to spending time with you. And poor me – trying to push you into the arms of a whore so you could have some pleasure.

OK, it’s been a month since we spoke. I think I will completely go insane when it’s been three months since you died – when you will have been gone for the same amount of time as we were together. Somehow this grief has to lessen. Somehow I have to get through it. I wonder how many litres of tears have poured down my face. I want to die, I just want to die. I am going through exactly what you were afraid I might. I can only just stand it without you. I am only just barely getting by. The not knowing part is a killer – the pointlessness of it, the hurtfulness. PLEASE, I am begging you – somehow MAKE THEM contact me!!! I always hated to ask you for anything but I am asking, begging, now. I only want to know little things, tiny things, innocuous things. What happened to your truck, your trophies, your rifles, your fly fishing rod, your computer, your "sled", YOUR PICTURES, your clothes, your hunting gear, your stereo?? What happened to YOU – who found you, at what time do they think you died, who was over that night, what happened to your body?? I WANT TO KNOW, I DESERVE TO KNOW!!! I am not asking about your things because I want them – I am asking because I want to know everything there is to know about you. For Christ’s sake, Keith, I tried to organise my very own mother’s deer rifle to be sent to you because you thought it was made by some small gunsmith – better you should have it then my brother and better then me trying to get it through Customs in Australia. But there just wasn’t time as it worked out – too bad, your nephew could have had it – and if that meant that there was a connection between the D. family and the L. family, well that would have been a good thing. I need to know about you because I treasure you, because I am trying to honour you. Let me grieve in the way I have to grieve – I am not going to forget you, no matter what but I think this whole process could be easier. And your wonderful Sage hat has still not arrived. What will I do if it never comes: if it gets lost in the mail or if it never got sent?

Warwick and I are on our own – we have nobody. It is so hard. I am facing this move and there are so many obstacles. One thing I never let you know was just how poor Wozza and I are – how close to the bone we live. My car is a total wreck, a complete POS. You didn’t know that I didn’t have enough money to buy a round trip air and Greyhound ticket from Sydney to 108 and I wasn’t going to let you know. I was just going to go back to Vancouver and stay in a hostel or backpacker’s until I got enough $$$ for airfare back to Sydney. And neither you nor Alison or anybody would have ever known. I would have lost my pension and maybe my job but by God I would have been there to help you and Ken and maybe make life easier for you. All that day on the twelfth when I should have been arriving there and was in Chinatown instead, I kept thinking "I should be on the plane right now" and indeed I should have if you hadn’t been so bloody stubborn. I was 100% prepared to sleep on an air mattress in the bed of the Dodge if I had to but no way.

Actually, I am starting to sound a bit snarky and I’m sorry. I love you even if you are a bit misguided from time to time. My Dad used to tell my Mother that she was bullheaded, but son, you take the cake. That reminds me – last night I realised that the person I love most in the world is my son, followed by my Mother and then, ta-dum, you. Of all the people I’ve come across in my life, of all the relationships and all the years, it comes down to you. Of all the people in the world in November 2004 I had to meet and fall in love with you – only to lose you in February. Ya, it’s cruel, but that’s the way it is. But it was meant to happen and you have done so much good in my life. Never any regrets.

- Susan

Wednesday morning, 9 March 2005 [11:00 a.m.]

Here I am again. I woke this morning thinking of you and Tina Turner’s "Be Tender with Me Baby" in my head. I am weepy, tired, strung out. It was exactly one month ago now that we last spoke on the ‘phone. I knew there was a chance I’d never hear your voice again at the time but I didn’t think we’d never be on Messenger again. ‘member you said "We’ll get together when we can" instead of your usual "Talk soon" or "Talk tomorrow". If I had known I would have rung sooner but, as I have said, I was trying to let you have your space, to let you decide just how much Susan you wanted in your life, to call the shots.

Be Tender With Me Baby – Hammond & Knight
You got the right to tell me it's all over
It isn't like me to be, begging you.
Don't let go, don't let go,
just stay with me another day.
When I'm not myself, please understand me.
I'm so confused I don't know what to do!
But don't give up, don't give up,
it just may take a little time.

Be tender with me baby, I'm so afraid you'll go away.
Be tender with me baby, always, for always.

I know that you've been patient with my weakness
and that you hate to see me cry.
But I know, yes I know
it doesn't have to be this way.
But I'm so lonely I could die.

- S.

Tuesday night, 8 March 2005 [midnight]

Hi, hon. Warwick and I watched "The Rookie" that you recommended. Again, I’d like to be able to discuss it with you and hear about the things you like about it. It really grew on me and there were some themes that I think you’d relate to: mateship, angst (‘David’ burning down the pub) and bikes, bikes, bikes! ;-) Warwick worked out that the other film you meant was "Field of Dreams" – we’ll get that out after "The Replacements".

Been up and down today – started to cry at the University today and that’s the first time that’s happened; cried again during dinner. Cried myself to sleep last night when I went to bed – I swear, I am getting worse instead of better. I know I’d feel better and could deal with things better if I only heard from Ken or Alison or bloody Don (I really shouldn't call him that, should I?).

Had a big think this morning while I was getting ready for work about April – I wonder how the poor thing is doing. Do you remember once on the phone when you called me April? One part of me was starting to get a little outraged thinking you were calling me by another girlfriend’s name and then you told me that was your daughter’s name. If you momentarily confused me with your daughter, well, that’s an honour.

Still no package from 108.

See you tomorrow, darling –

- S.

Monday night, 7 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Here I am again, still missing you. It’s something like 4:45 a.m. in 108 and the temperature is showing a whopping 18ºC. Spring is coming but not for you.

I just came in from the back yard and, yup, I could see the stars. The lights of the city are so bright it’s hard to see anything but the brightest of the stars. Don said you guys used to spend lots of time looking at the stars – just think, there you were looking up at Ursa Major and not knowing that one day you’d have a star up there named after you. While I was looking at them, I held one of the cats and cried. I never told you about the cats, did I? The one I was holding is called P.K. and she is very sweet – she knows that I am upset.

I don’t know when I’ll stop crying, I don’t know when a whole minute will go by and I won’t think of you. In a way I don’t mind because I loved you and I chose to stay with you in spite of everything. So I guess now I have to pay for all the love that I felt (and still feel) – isn’t that a Catholic, guilt-ridden way to look at things?

Honey, I know you didn’t want me to feel this way and I don’t know what to do about it. Should I stop posting about you in my blog? Should I forbid myself to think about you? No, I can’t do that because then I wouldn’t be able to keep my promises – you asked me with all sincerity to make and honour them and I will. I promise I will.

Good night, love –

- S.

Monday afternoon, 7 March 2005 [8:15 p.m.]

I just got back from the gym and had a go at starting dinner but I was missing you just too much and had to say "hi". The undergrads drove me nuts today – they are so noisy and rude. The picture of the cubs has not yet been returned. I would love to post some pictures with this blog but you said that they were private and just for me so I am not going to.

Keith, people in Western society are just not equipped to deal with the bereaved. They don’t know what to say, they don’t know how to act – it’s all just too painful. And then the grieving person becomes like some sort of a bad luck charm and everybody just keeps their distance for fear it will rub off on them. You don’t tell people and they wonder what’s wrong; you do tell and people pretty much seem to wish you’d just kept your mouth shut.

I’m sure there will be stars tonight – I’ll look later and see if we can be together that way again.

Missing you terribly.

- Susan

Sunday evening, 6 March 2005 [11:00 p.m.]

Hello, again, my much-loved Canuck. The stars were out tonight so I saw you again. Did all sorts of things today: laundry, dusting, sorting for the move, listening to music, reading in the sun. I even swapped the CD-ROM drives between the two computers – the one in my PC just wouldn’t let me rip mp3s. This drive is slower but more reliable. I betcha you didn’t think I could do it but I told you I could do ‘puter repairs, remember?

Dear God, I miss you and I have so many questions. Please don’t leave me alone like this.

- S.

March 19, 2005

Sunday afternoon, 6 March 2005 [2:00 p.m.]

Beautiful sparkling autumn day outside – was cool enough last night that I had to put a quilt on the bed.

So far, today has been awful. I wailed like I have never done before – it was like this ethnic keening you might hear on a documentary or something – ‘cept it was coming out of me. I feel so lost. Nothing from anyone in Canada and I am coming to believe that they haven’t and they won’t. Did you tell them not to contact me? If you thought that was protecting me, you were wrong – it is only making it worse. The parcel you asked them to mail to me still has not arrived. A similar thing happened when my Mother died – a few days before she died she sent me a letter. It arrived a couple of days after she died. I couldn’t bring myself to open it. I think I had it at least a year and a half before I did. She used to, from time to time, stick in a U.S. five-dollar note and I was so broke I had to open it to see if she had done so. It was so sad to receive a letter from "beyond the grave". I hope to receive yours soon.

I try saying to myself "When one door closes, another opens" but I am having a hard time convincing myself. But it is true in that if Rick hadn’t left me when he did, we would have never met.

I’ve got to go, I am feeling too sad and I am going to go and see if I can concentrate on some reading. I am already starting to forget things – I’m even wondering if you rang up on the ‘phone if I’d recognise your voice. Please, honey, please don’t leave me. Don’t let my mind forget what my heart knows.

- S.

P.S.: It’s 7:30 p.m. Saturday night in BC and I just checked the weather in 108 – wow, it’s 8ºC and only a few clouds. Nice, eh?

March 18, 2005

Saturday night, 5 March 2005 [midnight]

‘lo, my Keith. Since you were going to watch "The Notebook" after we talked, I went down to the video shop and got out a copy and watched it. I’d really like to know your opinion of it – I wasn’t all that keen on it: the "nice" boy was too nice and the girl never seemed to do anything for the men in her life. She was not at all like me. But there is one thing it made me think about – that I would have never, ever left you. No matter how long you would have battled that damned disease, you could have counted on me to face it with you.

Hang on a sec – I’m going to go see if the clouds have cleared and if we can see each other in the sky tonight…. Yes! They were out and I could see the Southern Cross (my faux Ursa Major). Warwick was saying today that he thinks that I should take a trip to BC and to 108, that it might make me feel better. Hopefully, I will be hearing back from Don. Yeah, it would be good to rent a car in Vancouver and make the trip up – at least I can track down Loomis! I’d see if I could visit Action Animals, too – wouldn’t it be great if I could see Kisa!

We looked at houses today – I just can’t afford the rent here any more. Warwick was a real pain and I wished you could have had one of your talks with him tonight. He needs a good old boot up the backside and you have always seemed to be good at administering those – LOL!

OK, hon, that’s all for tonight – I’ve stuff to do and am going to have an early night for a change. Missing you heaps.

- S.

Friday afternoon, 4 March 2005 [5:30 p.m.]

Guess what, honey? I drove down Spring Garden Street on my way to work this morning (more like afternoon, I was so late) and I found some jacaranda blossoms. I picked up a few and put them on my corkboard at work. They’re not so special as those ones I got for you from the Uni quadrangle but they are special nonetheless this late in the season. I know they are blooming in celebration of you.

Nothing from Don, Alison or Ken. No parcel. I feel completely disregarded and unacknowledged by them. I am trying to say to myself that people are on vacation or getting over their own sorrow. But it’s hard.

OK, before I dissolve into tears again, I am going to the gym. Today two people at work said that I looked great and the other day someone else there said "Girl, you rock!" so I guess I’m not doing too badly. [Cripes, I would have thought the red, swollen eyes would have been a giveaway.]

I know I sound like a broken record but thank you again for being you and for putting up with me and even growing to love me. You can depend on the facts that I will, in the end, be alright, that I will keep my promises and I will honour you in my life. That’s the best I can do, honey.

- all my love, Susan

(Jeez, the guitar in "Rough Boy" is good.)

Friday morning, 4 March 2005 [10:00 a.m.]

I woke in tears from a dream this morning. You and I had been holding hands and strolling around the Main Campus of the University. The place was deserted – not a soul anywhere. No matter where we went there was silence and emptiness. I collapsed to the ground in tears and you knelt beside me. You put your strong arms around me and held me tight. We both knew that I was going to be left all alone in an empty world and you were trying to comfort me.

Every day that goes by, Keith, I realise more and more all the things you were trying to do for me – that you were protecting me right up to the very end. You were right, I did get "hurt" (if you choose to believe that hurt can be unintentional and I don’t think you did hurt me because you never meant to) and this grief is much worse than I expected it to be. It’s getting worse instead of better – I cry more, I miss you more. I am slowly (and this sounds crazy) really coming to believe that you are truly and finally gone. Gone. Dead. Nothing.

I have come to question everything I once believed in – God, heaven, the afterlife, existence, Catholicism. I do believe you are in some sort of spirit world with Clayton and your loved ones, I truly do. I even believe that you can somehow intercede for me and I wish you would.

But, in spite of all the tears and all this blundering about in a seemingly meaningless world, I do acknowledge everything you did for me. It is a shame that it took me until after your death to realise how much you did love me. Unlike my intense tiger-person way, your love was steady, unbending, constant – underpinning everything you did and I didn’t really realise it. You didn’t shower me with gifts, instead your whole life and the way you lived it was a gift.

Shine on, my sweetheart. The storms of last night are gone and I’m guessing there will be stars out tonight so we can meet again as you said.

- S.

Late Thursday night, 3 March 2005 [12:45 a.m.]

Bugger! – Well, it had to happen sooner or later – I didn’t save the last letter that I wrote last night – I didn’t even sign it off.

Today was better than yesterday by far, thank God. No stars again – tonight there was the most fantastic lightening storm in the West. It seemed to hit in the same place over and over again.

I went down to the jacaranda tree on Spring Garden Street but couldn’t find any blossoms – they are gone like you are. I know you won’t want me to feel this way, but I know my heart will be heavy in October and November when they bloom again. I miss you every moment I have to endure without you. Your picture on the wall above the computer is starting to curl from the humidity we have had lately. Every night I spend some time with your photo that I have in the bedroom – I brush my fingertips lightly across your face and talk, sometimes out loud, to you. Can you hear me, can you hear me where you are?

- your Susan

March 17, 2005

Wednesday evening, 2 March 2005 [7:15 p.m.]

Keith – I don’t know what is going on. I have continued to cry all day – I look a mess: scalded red face, swollen red eyes. Not too long ago I rang the Grief Counselling line – I don’t understand why I am having the worst day ever almost two weeks after your death. I cannot seem to get a handle on the tears. I miss you so! I so badly want to put my arms around your big strong shoulders. I thought about New Year’s when you were in a coma and they played that music from my New Year’s card for you in the hope that you could hear it. I wonder now who it was that did that for you (and wish to bloody hell they would ring or email me).

March 16, 2005

Wednesday morning, 2 March 2005 [10:15 a.m.]

Hello, love. It’s only ten and already I’ve had an awful morning. I woke up in tears for you at seven and held on to your picture as if I was drowning. I am drowning, drowning in grief. I thanked God for you: for your life, for your every spoken word, every message, every email, every gift, every promise.

Don still has not written – I am wondering if you made him and others promise not to contact me in one of your well-intentioned if not a little misguided attempts to shield me from hurt. Honey, it doesn’t work like that!

- Susan

March 15, 2005

Tuesday night, 1 March 2005 [11:15 p.m.]

It’s March – a month you never got to know. And I was thinking about the Northern Spring today and how you will miss it. Again, no email from Don – please give him a boot and get him to make contact again. I feel so left out.

TB from Duncan sent me an email about "special people" and how they come into your life for a "reason", a "season" or a "lifetime" and you were definitely my "reason". But it’s hard to believe that God would let you suffer so just to teach me lessons I needed to learn and a path I needed to set myself upon. I want God to take me so I can be with you. Yes, I’m doing things and having fun as I know you want me to but, really, I’d rather be with you. I’m not going to take my own life – no way – I’d be sure to never see you again if I did, but I’m not going to fight death if it comes. I’ll just walk towards the light knowing I’ll see a hand extending towards me and it will be you there waiting to help me across, as Clayton waited for you.

Honey, I am so tired, I have to go. My eyes are practically crossing. Watch over me again tomorrow.

- S.

March 14, 2005

Early Tuesday morning, 1 March 2005 [12:45 a.m.]

Hey, hon, it’s me (again). Beautiful starry night and I was out looking at the Southern Cross again. And I only cried once today.

Somebody got between the momma tiger and her cubs today and I went around for hours like a bear with a sore head (like somebody I know without his coffee) – today was the first day back for the undergraduate students and some little shit stole one of your twin tiger cub photos off my office door! I could hardly believe it and I was so angry. And hurt. So I have put a note up saying that the photographer died from myeloid metaplasia on 13 February and could I please have the photo back as I need it more than the thief does. We’ll see if I get any results.

Went to the gym right after work: did my little routine – feel better for it, too. Oh, yeah, stopped at the Library on the way home and got some good suggestions from one of the librarians.

The yellow lily with your photo in the bedroom has finally fallen apart – it’s been quite hot and humid lately and I guess it just couldn’t take it. The pink tiger lilies in the dining room and bathroom are, however, still looking spectacular.

Still haven’t heard from Don and the parcel hasn’t arrived. Hope Don is OK – he was pretty busted up that night he wrote me. Keith, the more I think about it, the more I realise how much you loved us and tried to look out for us and improve our lives. You are such an amazing man – so many facets to you, some of them seemingly contradictory – my much beloved Canuck woodsman!

Remember when we’d be on MSN Messenger and you just couldn’t seem to sign off and I kept saying "go on, go to bed!" and you’d keep on and the meds would be kicking in and you’d be about falling off your chair and Ken would be trying to get you to bed… Well, I’m like that now, I just don’t want to say goodbye. Honey, I’ve said it before, but I treasure every single second that we spent together. Every one.

‘night –

- S.

"Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" – Green Day

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial,
For what it's worth it was worth all the while.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Monday morning, 28 February 2005 [10:00 a.m.]

I just had the most dreadful thought (dreadful, but comforting in a way, too) – one day the day will come when I go through the entire day without thinking once about you. My feet will be firmly set on the path that you have mapped out for me but my mind will be free in a poignant, contrary way – no more gut wrenching sadness but at the expense of all our memories. God, I miss you!

Knowing what you went through I don’t wish you back and I went into this with my eyes open – we only knew each other about two weeks when you told me about the cancer. How I felt my guts drop inside me when you told me! I will never forget that phone call and how I tried to let you know that it didn’t matter to me, that the knowledge of it wasn’t enough for me to cut and run. So I stayed with you and tried to support you and be there for you and did absolutely everything I could possibly think of to make you life easier, better.

Too sad this morning which, I have to say, is beautiful – maybe I will be blessed with the sight of stars tonight.

- Susan

March 13, 2005

Sunday evening, 27 February 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Keith – Not a lot to report tonight – sky is still cloudy, no stars ;-( . In my heart I know you are gone but a tiny part of my brain just hasn’t accepted it. I still look to see if it’s an international call when the phone rings, I still startle when MSN Messenger goes off, I look for e-mails from you… not gonna happen, is it honey? I wrote Don last night, but he hasn’t replied. I am toying with the idea of giving him my blog URL but I don’t know. Not sure if you’d want any of your mates knowing some of this. But bloody hell, Keith, you should have given them the star URL, you really should have. [Aw, sh*t, "Rough Boy" is playing.]

Today is soooo much better than yesterday – I don’t think that I’ve cried at all – yesterday I was a mess. I had this long, out loud, weepy conversation with your "cub" photo when I went to bed last night after I wrote – if you can hear me you’ll know that I’m basically alright, just sad. Missing you so. Saying "I’ll never, ever meet anyone like you" is so cliché it’s almost unbearable but it’s true and I’ll never love anybody as much or in the same way as I love you. Bloody damn shame. [Better clarify that – shame that we couldn’t still be together. I do not mean a shame that I love you – you know I wouldn’t trade in an instant, I’d only make you well if I could have.]

LOL! "Pearl Necklace" has just come on – damn, I’d like to know your reaction. Sorry, buddy, you’re the one put me on to the Top now you’ve just got to put up with it! Now wouldn’t it be fun if we were zooming ‘round in that green Dodge with the Top up high – God, how we’d laugh and have fun!

K – I’m saying ‘night on a high note (with "Necklace" in the background). Rock on –

- Susan

March 12, 2005

Saturday evening, 26 February 2005 [9:15 p.m.]

Hey, you! (what you always used to say on MSN). Today has not been the best of days. I keep bursting into tears – I was in a pet store talking to this funny little puppy when all of a sudden I just burst into tears and had to rush out of the shop. I saw your picture with the yellow lilies on the bedside table and had a cry. I stood looking out of the front door and cried again. Got sick of reading and tried to have a nap and wound up with tears running down my face. I’m even finding this hard to write. I had been doing really well so I’m not sure why all the tears today. God knows I miss you, for sure. But don’t worry, I’m OK, I’m really OK – I’m getting on with the changes you have made in my life and things will get better I know.

Heavy cloud cover again tonight so no communing with the stars. Fighting back the urge to write Don – not sure if he’s ready. He certainly sounds like a good friend.

I’m wondering who took down your websites (even your Lavalife profile) – did you do it or did somebody else and, if so, did you instruct them to do so? I am so thankful that you sent me so many photos so I’m not having to miss your websites, too. Thank God your MSN contact name is still showing – I just get a little comfort from seeing your names up there.

Damn, I wish you had never said "I am so sorry" to me – I didn’t want you to ever feel like that, to ever feel like you had to apologise to me - I always tried to make things better for you, better for us. One trivial wish I’ve had: I wish I had the smarts to try and ring somewhere in 108 or 100 Mile House and see if I could have gotten a case of that Sleeman’s Honey Pale Ale that you liked delivered to your house. I don’t care if you puked up every drop, it was your favourite and you deserved the best. [This is a selfish thought, but I hope when I die I’ve got somebody around that loves me as much as I love you.]

Honey, I’m too weepy to go on. I think I’m going to write Don a short e-mail now and call it a night. And Rick is being very caring of me – he was jealous when he found out about you but when I told him you had passed away he was very supportive of me and I owe him an e-mail. And speaking of friends, I think Ken is a saint – thank you, Ken, for everything you did.

‘night for now (it is so nice to say that to you and know you are not suffering) –

- Susan

Friday, 25 February 2005 [11:30 p.m.]

I’ve just gotten in from looking for you in the stars. At first there was complete cloud cover and then one star managed to peek through. So I got to be with you after all.

I started with the personal trainer today – I really enjoyed it, except for the treadmill. To get through it, I just imagined I was walking to you and that was enough to keep me putting one foot in front of the other until my time was done.

Terribly tired but I had a good day today with no tears – honey, I’m doing OK, better than I expected. I told you I’d be OK!

‘night, sweetie –

- S.

"But I feel softened as I write; the better spirit springs, And I am very sad tonight because of many things:- The friendships that I have abused, the trust I dared betray, The talents that I have misused, the gifts I threw away. But I have done with barren strife and dark imaginings, and in my future work and life will seek the better things." exerpt from 'Cross-Roads' by Henry Lawson.

: Name: Susan; Location: Sydney, Australia

I'm the 55 y.o. mother of a 22 y.o. son. I have recently graduated from the University of Sydney (where I work) with a BAppSci in Radiation Therapy. While I live in Sydney, I am originally from Michigan in the US. I am fortunate to have had a variety of amazing jobs (from working on an exploration site in Alaska to working on a research vessel in the Gulf of Papua) and to have done a lot of travelling, but being a lone parent has, to some extent, tied me down. But don't misunderstand - my son is the best thing in my life! This blog was inspired by the December 26 tsunami disaster (hence the title "Swept Away") but not about it. A lot of my life is about loss and I am going to write about that but I know that my losses are nothing compared to that of millions of people today. But I need to take this journey and I am going to do it in a public way.

View my complete profile

Swept Away

March 31, 2005

Easter Sunday evening, 27 March 2005 [9:45 p.m.]

Easter Sunday afternoon, 27 March 2005 [4:45 p.m.]

March 30, 2005

Easter Sunday morning, 27 March 2005 [9:30 a.m.]

Saturday night, 26 March 2005 [9:15 p.m.]

March 29, 2005

Friday night, 25 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Thursday evening, 24 March 2005 [10:30 p.m.]

Wednesday night, 23 March 2005 [7:30 p.m.]

March 28, 2005

Tuesday night, 22 March 2005 [11:15 p.m.]

Tuesday night, 22 March 2005 [10:45 p.m.]

Monday night, 21 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

March 27, 2005

Sunday night, 20 March 2005 [midnight]

Sunday evening, 20 March 2005 [7:00 p.m.]

Sunday afternoon, 20 March 2005 [10:30 a.m.]

Saturday night, 19 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Saturday morning, 19 March 2005 [10:00 p.m.]

Friday night, 18 March 2005 [8:00 p.m.]

Friday evening, 18 March 2005 [6:00 p.m.]

March 26, 2005

Friday morning, 18 March 2005 [8:45 a.m.]

Thursday night, 17 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

early Thursday morning, 17 March 2005 [1:00 p.m.]

March 25, 2005

Wednesday morning, 16 March 2005 [10:30 p.m.]

March 24, 2005

early Wednesday morning, 16 March 2005 [2:00 a.m.]

Tuesday evening, 15 March 2005 [9:00 p.m.]

March 23, 2005

Monday night, 14 March 2005 [10:15 p.m.]

Monday morning, 14 March 2005 [9:45 a.m.]

Sunday night, 13 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

March 22, 2005

Sunday afternoon, 13 March 2005 [3:00 p.m.]

Saturday night, 12 March 2005 [10:15 p.m.]

Saturday afternoon, 12 March 2005 [2:30 p.m.]

early Saturday night, 12 March 2005 [2:30 a.m.]

Friday night, 11 March 2005 [10:30 p.m.]

March 21, 2005

Thursday night, 10 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

March 20, 2005

Wednesday night, 9 March 2005 [11:30 p.m.]

Wednesday morning, 9 March 2005 [11:00 a.m.]

Tuesday night, 8 March 2005 [midnight]

Monday night, 7 March 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

Monday afternoon, 7 March 2005 [8:15 p.m.]

Sunday evening, 6 March 2005 [11:00 p.m.]

March 19, 2005

Sunday afternoon, 6 March 2005 [2:00 p.m.]

March 18, 2005

Saturday night, 5 March 2005 [midnight]

Friday afternoon, 4 March 2005 [5:30 p.m.]

Friday morning, 4 March 2005 [10:00 a.m.]

Late Thursday night, 3 March 2005 [12:45 a.m.]

March 17, 2005

Wednesday evening, 2 March 2005 [7:15 p.m.]

March 16, 2005

Wednesday morning, 2 March 2005 [10:15 a.m.]

March 15, 2005

Tuesday night, 1 March 2005 [11:15 p.m.]

March 14, 2005

Early Tuesday morning, 1 March 2005 [12:45 a.m.]

"Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" – Green Day

Monday morning, 28 February 2005 [10:00 a.m.]

March 13, 2005

Sunday evening, 27 February 2005 [11:45 p.m.]

March 12, 2005

Saturday evening, 26 February 2005 [9:15 p.m.]

Friday, 25 February 2005 [11:30 p.m.]

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