Monday night, 18 July 2005 [11:15 p.m.]:
Hey ya, my Keith!
When I got home tonight there was something in the mailbox that looked like it might be a form from the Post Office and I pulled it out – and it was a menu from a Chinese restaurant – LOL! (Don had said that he’d let me know when he sends your parcel and I know that he will do whatever he says that he will do. He’s going to a lot of trouble for me and I appreciate it.)
Speaking of Don – it was five months ago tonight that I got Don’s email confirming that you had died. Of course I knew, honey - you hadn’t gone five days without either getting in touch with me or telling me where you’d be and when you’d be back and would write again since the first week in January. So of course I knew. In fact I knew on the 10th – that’s the day that I wrote, "it seems like a lifetime" since I had spoken to you that second time on the 9th. It was a lifetime – it was the end of yours.
Today was good, I was pretty matter of fact about everything. It was good to see your photos in my office but I didn’t go over the top.
I left work late, about twenty to six. It was that special, special time when the trees are all in silhouette – they looked as if they were intricately cut out of black paper. The sky was a medium blue directly overhead but it faded to a smudged orange-rose colour on the horizon. There were two "stars" out – Venus and Mars. It was very, very beautiful and made, I think, just for those of us who notice and revel in such things… it called for stillness and a holding of breath for a heartbeat. (By the time I got home the rest of the stars were out and I got to say "hello".)
On the way home it hit me – I will never, ever be free of you. Nature sang in you, Keith, you were open to it like a child. And whenever I see nature – alive or inanimate – I will always connect it with you. The shape of a wing of a bird overhead, the smell of pines, the movement of water, the faint glimmer of stars, a kitten at play – I will always, always think of you. God etched you in my heart. I am sorry in some ways for it for both our sakes but that is the way it is. I don’t know why – I have to believe that you came to me for a reason other than to make me a better person. I want to believe that you got something out of it, too. I know on some levels that I comforted you but was it enough, was it all worth it? For you, I mean, was it worth it for you? I want to believe it was – would you have contacted me all those times (I didn’t contact you, remember?) if it wasn’t doing you good? Or was it your sense of duty – you knew that I was crazy over you: did you contact me because you thought it was good for me? I just don’t think that you would have done that. Oh, honey, I am over analysing it again, I know. But you come to mind so often and I go over and over in my head… everything. The first sweet email that you wrote me to "we’ll get together when we can" on the 9th. Every email, every ‘phone call, every MSN Message, every card, every gift… I am trying to celebrate you, I am trying to be positive like you tried to teach me but my heart is so heavy and, honey, it is breaking. I don’t know how to live without you. All this running around I do, all these people, all these places – they are just a diversion. I miss you. I don’t understand what happened. Even if Don is right and you "only" loved me as a friend, I still find the grief nigh unto unbearable. If I knew that I’d see you in the afterlife, I would beg for death.
This is pathetic and unhealthy. And I can’t see any end to it. Don is right – you definitely would not want me to grieve for you and certainly not to this extent and for this long (I had no idea myself that it would be like this). I was good to you, honey, please be good to me and help me, OK. I need your help and I hate to ask for it – you need to be able to be free. I want you to be free and happy and well and doing all the things that you want to do. But if you want to come and if you want to help, I crave it, Keith. I am so, so sorry to have to tell you that I need you. I feel so cheated to only have had you for as long as I did (and Ken agreed with me when we talked about it). I know a million reasons why I fell in love with you. But sometimes, sometimes I can believe a million reasons why you might have fallen in love with me and that’s your gift to me, that knowledge of self and self worth that you gave me. Keith, you are such a special person and I wish you believed that a bit more in your life. You seemed to crave approval when all of us around you were in awe of you. Your relationships with women – you shouldn’t have put up with anything but the absolute best because you were worth it. You were a gentleman, you were a SNAG, you were a friend extraordinaire, you were a good father to both your children (don’t ever let anyone beat you up over Craig), you were a good provider, you were a sportsman and a total rager. You knew what friendship meant and knew how sacred a promise could be. If there was anyone around you that didn’t love you then there was something wrong with them and not you. I can only think of one negative thing about you – you had a tendency sometimes to have a certain "Keith’s way or the highway" thing going. You wouldn’t brook any argument or discussion, it was just all your way. Well, I learned to live with it – I think it’s a shame that you decided that I wasn’t to come over but that’s what you decided [Lord knows what would have happened if I had come anyway (and I think it might have upset some of your plans)].
Well, I’m not crying now like I was a couple of paragraphs before. I’m freezing and it’s almost 12:30 a.m. I’m going to go to bed and try not to cry when I get there. I miss you constantly, I love you always.
- your Susan
P.S.: Keith, I never set out to love you. You were an acquaintance, an on-line friend. You were cheerful and funny and interesting. I looked forward so to your stories and to your pictures. And so passed November and December. But January – January was my gift to you and February was your gift to me. My friend, you are ever in my heart.
Here's Keith's very own jacaranda tree! By spring it will have lost all its lacy, fern-like leaves. So, when the beautiful jacaranda-blue blossoms appear, there are no leaves to distract the eye from the tree's beauty. Keith loved these trees from the moment he first saw them.
Wozza and the jacaranda tree - it's just a bit bigger than him.
