May 31, 2005

Monday night, 30 May 2005 [9:30 p.m.]:

Hey, there, Grizz!

Brrr – it’s cold (well it is for those of us who live in Australia and are used to the heat). So I did what ya’ do when it’s chilly out – I made chilli con carne, mmmm. I used my sister Peg’s recipe and it’s really good (in fact I think I could win a chilli cook-off competition with it). Warwick and I always serve it really hot (temperature-wise) and sprinkle grated cheese on the top. Yum, yum. So, having just eaten, I’m all toasty warm.

Worked today, got there a bit earlier than usual so I left earlier than usual which meant I got to the gym early. So I had an extra long session with lots of cardio and plenty of weights.

Wore my iPod today (it has decided to work again) and got a bit weepy in my office when Green Day’s "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" came on. "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." Keith, I know you had the time of you life, thank God, you were just that sort of a man.

Not sure if I’ll write again tonight but all my love to you nonetheless. Stay well and happy and know you are loved and missed.

- Tiger Woman

Sunday night, 29 May 2005 [11:00 p.m.]:

Hi, honey, it’s me again. I’m not going to write very much – I am absolutely freezing! There is a gas heater in the living room and we tried to get it going but couldn’t – I’m even finding it hard to type.

Went to the scrapbooking place today and worked on the Big White and Ski-Doo pages (they happen to be from Christmas ’97 and ’98). One of the women there saw what I was working on and had a look at some of your pictures – then everybody came around and had a look at Kisa and the cubs and Rowdy and Simba. They all thought you look like a wonderful person who lived life to the full – "good on you" as we say here in Australia.

Well this post is short but I’m going to go – I’ve been sitting here going through font sites to use in your album and I’ve gotten quite cold. It’ll be nice to get to bed early for a change.

Wish so much the ‘phone would ring right now and it would be you. Or you’d knock at the door. Or you’d drive up in the green Dodge and honk outside the front door so we could go for a drive with the Top turned way up high on the stereo. Or I’d hear that chime that signals a message on MSN and it would be you. I miss you so much, Grizz, and I know that I always will. Ya’, it’s kinda sad but I wouldn’t trade away one instant of our time for anything on this earth. Not one moment for anything in this world.

- S.

May 30, 2005

Saturday evening, 28 May 2005 [8:30 p.m.]:

K.D.:

I have just had the most awful session of crying, the worst I have had in a number of years. I just started to sob (who knows why?) and I cried out, "No, no, no, God no." over and over. It was almost as if I had just found you dead or something. Horrible and I don’t know what set it off.

Actually, I do know what set it off. I was looking at e-cards, trying to find one to send to Tom B and I found this (copyright American Greetings/BlueMountain.com):

From the moment I saw you,
I wanted to meet you.


From the moment I met you,
I wanted to know you.


From the moment I knew you,
I was in love with you.


From the moment I loved you,
I wanted to share my life with you.


And from that moment to this moment,
and for all the moments to come…


I will love you with all my heart.


That so perfectly describes the stages that I went through to get to know and to love you. "From the moment I saw you" – that picture of you and Kisa on Lavalife. "From the moment I met you" – those first two emails that you sent to me. "From the moment I knew you" – well that was an ongoing thing, but probably mostly occurred in about the second week of January. "From the moment I loved you", well let’s leave that to other lyrics – ZZ Top ("Stages"): "It happened before I knew what was going on. I fell out and knew that I was gone." "And for all the moments to come… I will love you with all my heart." Well, honey, you know that is true. You will be loved, cherished and honoured all the days of my life. Everything about you, everything about our relationship - for always.

I miss you so very, very much and there are many tears. Please help all of us down here that need it and I think that is most of us – only you can see into our true hearts.

Without your hat, or some other tangible thing, I have no evidence of your death. I have had acknowledgment from almost no one. I have virtually no way to say goodbye to you. (Unless you count that Valentine’s Day card that I sent to you but I don’t know if you ever received it.) Do you see that it is important for me to get your package? Do you see that it is important for me to get in touch with Don? Not only for the package, but I need his help to find the pilot that you knew so I can go to where your daughter distributed your ashes. I’ve got until November to find him but I will go to BC even if I don’t know this beforehand.

It’s almost nine, I’m going to say ‘bye. Please come and be with me again, honey. Love –

- S.

Saturday evening, 28 May 2005 [6:30 p.m.]:

I am so sorry, Keith, but I just miss you so! I’m sorry about the way I am acting over Colleen and Alison but I just can’t seem to help it. I wish that they would honour any promises that they made to you. It is so cruel and hurtful for them to keep my things from me. I really think that Don should contact me – why is it that people don’t want to deliver bad news and would rather instead deliver no news at all? I think that may be why I haven’t heard from him – that he doesn’t want to pass on the info that they have decided that they will not send it.

Don, I want to hear from you and I want for you to please answer some questions that I have. Thanks –

- Susan

May 29, 2005

Saturday afternoon, 28 May 2005 [1:30 P.M.]:

Hi, there, sweetie! ;-)

I’ve been bad – didn’t get up until five to twelve! (And I only got up then ‘cuz the kitten was pestering me.) It is beautifully warm and sunny today (good grief, I just looked and it’s 28°C at Abbotsford and it’s eight o’clock at night there!).

OK, so how do I know the time/temp at Abbottsford right now? Well, I have the weather network up for several cities and 'Abby' is one of them. And – deep breath here – I rang Colleen’s number at around seven thirty p.m. there. She said "Hello" twice before I hung up – I was tempted to say, "Is this Colleen? This is Susan and I would like you to send the package that Keith left for me, after all, it is mine. Are you trying to hurt me or is this your way of hurting and controlling Keith? You, of all people, should know by now that his spirit is unable to be contained." Of course, I didn’t say that – I didn’t say anything. She may wonder at who has rung (this is the second time) and may even have suspicions that it’s me. I don’t care any longer. I don’t care what is polite or acceptable. If they back this tiger into a corner I can promise you that I will lash out. Hopefully, Don will intervene. I told you I gave him the URL to this site and I don’t know if he read some and decided that I am nuts, or finds it too painful, or doesn’t want to be involved anymore or what. If he does not come through I will have to act on my own and I think that will probably be a bit confronting and painful for all of us. I don’t know how to convey to Don why the package is so important and why I need answers to some of my questions. Don – if you read this – please contact me!!!

I know that this is a bad time right now for your family and will bring back lots of painful (and happy!) memories as your Dad passed away on the 2nd of June last year. And with you being gone only about 3½ months by then everything is going to come to the surface all over again and be very painful indeed. I am sorry for that, as you know. But you, at least, get to be with your Dad and I know that you’ll both be looking down on your family with love. Do the same for me, OK?

I cannot begin to tell you how this Colleen/Alison thing is upsetting me. It all seems so unfair and petty. Now with me making anonymous ‘phone calls like a 14 y.o., I’m getting petty, too. Not my fault! I’m not the one who kept the package that was addressed to someone else.

So with that odour of angst in the air, I’m going to close. Have a wonderful time, honey. If there is anything, anything at all, that you would like me to do or not do please let me know. I know that you will find a way to communicate that to me.

Loving you, missing you, wanting you, needing you…

- your Susan

May 28, 2005

early Saturday morning, 28 May 2005 [2:00 a.m.]:

Here I am, honey, doing the night owl thing again.

Today was pretty usual except that I had to be at work extra early because Kerrie and I were farewelling a lovely girl, Kate, from Student Admin who is leaving. You may remember me mentioning her – she is the Korean girl that offered to make Korean flashcards for us to take on our trip to make it easier for us to get around Seoul. We will miss her a lot. Then to the gym, then to a counselling appointment and then home to wash my hair and get ready for tonight’s singles party.

It was pretty OK – there was some good music and I got to dance a bit, which I really enjoy. Did you see me, hon? I think I danced really well and, if I may say so myself, I think that I was one of the best dancers there (not counting the ones that were dancing as partners – not sure what that type of dancing is called). Met a few people and three nice guys asked me if I would like to go to a pub in Balmain next Thursday night where there is karaoke – do you know, I’ve never been before!

Honey, I’m getting pretty sleepy so I’m going to close. A lot of things reminded me of you tonight so don’t think you’re getting crowded out by all the things that I have been up to lately. I’m happier if I’m busy but I never stop thinking of you for an instant. Not one single instant, OK? I love you, KD, and you are always with me. ‘bye for now…

- Susan

early Friday morning, 27 May 2005 [2:15 a.m.]:

Hey, ya’, Keith!

Well, as you can see, it’s late and I’m crazy being up so late as I have to be at work early tomorrow. Also, it’s freezing tonight and I’m dying to jump into bed.

Just wanted to touch base with you and tell you about my day. A pretty day, but windy so it was very cool. Got to leave work early and headed over to the gym and had a really good session. When I got home the moon was low in the sky and looked like a harvest moon – a beautiful golden glow and huge on the horizon. Later on it looked hard and cold and silver and it is already getting smaller.

Got to thinking today about how special you are – son, you just knock me out. That we never got to have a go at having a "real" relationship will be, I am sure, the biggest disappointment of my life. Of course, we did have a relationship but here I mean a committed, living together sort of a relationship. I didn’t really mean that much to you (that sounds terrible but you know what I mean) except as a good friend until not long before the end and I’m hoping that I meant to you what you mean to me. Ya’, you told me you loved me but how did you mean it? I think you meant it body and soul, like I do, but, honey, we ran out of time. I can only go back and read the words that you wrote to me and interpret it from there – I’ve got no way to check it out.

Anyway, hon, I miss you as always. And all the love you can handle is waiting right here for you. G'night, Grizz…

- Susan

Wednesday night, 25 May 2005 [9:30 p.m.]:

Well, Keith – here we are again!

Today was pretty much like yesterday except that I felt lots better. I had a mammogram and the radiographer was from Ontario and knew one of my students. She was saying how disappointing Christmases are here (no snow, etc.). Went to the gym and had a really good cardio session plus did all the weights. I was going to go to the scrapbooking place tonight but decided not to since I’ve got absolutely no money until payday (tomorrow, thank God!). Took some food over to the abandoned kittens at the local Hungry Jack’s (Burger King). They look about ten or twelve weeks old and it would be impossible to catch them without a trap – they are cute but very wary. I’m sure if I took them into the animal shelter they’d be put down because they tend to adopt out kittens here when they are really, really small – damn shame, it’s not the poor kittens fault that some people are jerks.

No news really – pretty day and a gorgeous moon tonight. Nothing from Don or anybody else in BC. I’m wondering if whoever took my package decided to open it to see what was in it and what you might have written to me and now they can’t mail it since it’s been tampered with. Hell, they could even have pitched it out the car window on the trip back down to Abbotsford – who the heck knows? It is completely pissing me off (but I guess I didn’t have to tell you that!).

I know it’s early, honey, but I’m going to end here and have an early night tonight – maybe watch a little TV and then head for bed.

I guess that I don’t have to say "stay safe" to you since you’re in about the safest place one can go – but take it easy and be cool my awesome Grizz. Love and hugs always –

- S.

P.S.: Oh, yeah, there were ten cockatoos at the scrapbooking place last night – wish you could see them.

May 27, 2005

Wednesday morning, 25 May 2005 [10:45 a.m.]:

Hi there, my sweet honey.

This morning is overcast and grey and my mood matches the sky. I am feeling empty and alone. You know, I haven’t felt like this since I met you. You filled all my days with a delightful anticipation and a sense of rightness and wholeness. Today I don’t have any of that. Did your family mean to break the bonds between us? Well, today is a setback but I am not going to let them win because you mean too much to me and I am not just going to ignore, or forget, the love between us – no matter whose feathers it ruffles. You have no idea how staunch I can be! I am very kind and generous but, at the same time, not the sort of a person one would want as an enemy. Take it as read.

Not working today – I have a mammogram in the early afternoon. So I’ll do the scrapbook thing and the gym thing today. Impatiently waiting for my pay to be deposited into my account – two of my timesheets didn’t make it into the Main Campus payroll office for me to be paid last time, so I have gone a fortnight (two weeks) with practically nothing. In fact, I have less than $2 in my account right now with the rent only paid to the 19th and gas, electric and ‘phone bills are due. Oh, well, that’s just the way it is and I just have to deal with it.

OK, honey, time to get on with today. At the risk of sounding trite, I sure hope I get my mojo back.

Loving you as always –

- Susan

May 25, 2005

Tuesday night, 24 May 2005 [11:00 p.m.]:

Hey, there, ya’ big Canuck! How have you been?

Not much to report today. I didn’t work today so I went to the gym and did a bit of cardio work. I also went to the scrapbooking place to work on some of your page layouts – the first pages I’m going to work on are the Big White pics and one of your Ski-Doo. Then I’m going to do a page called "A Boy’s Toys" with your Dodge, the Polaris and that fish-floaty thingy. I also fixed up that picture of you on the riverbank with a bear that you shot from your boat – the digital code had gotten fuxored but I was able to slice it up and sort of reassemble it so it looks heaps better. I did it with the print but I wonder if I couldn’t do it in Paint Shop Pro – hmmm.

Honey, it’s cold and I’m going to go and get ready for bed, snuggle up to your picture and do some reading from the warm cocoon of my waterbed. Cloudy tonight so no stars to meet you with. Wish I had Clayton’s book to read - ;-( . [Yup, that means no news from Don and no package – God, I am sick of this sh*t. (insert large sigh here).]

I miss all the times that we had… I miss all the untold stories… I miss all the ways you had of surprising and pleasing me… I miss the way you used to make me laugh. I miss you, honey, I miss you. Think of me now and again, OK? With your help I’ll be alright.

- S.

Monday, 23 May 2005 [11:45 p.m.]:

Hey, there, my big sweet honey of a man! In spite of missing you like crazy, today was a beautiful, beautiful day. The past few days have been cold in the early morning but sunny and warming up by midday and the air is so crisp and clean. And tonight there was a plump and swollen full moon to shine down on us. It seemed only yesterday that it was a parched, skinny crescent.

I went to the gym tonight (got stuck right into to it, too) and on the way home I stopped by 18 Walter Street. No, the guy there hasn’t received anything and your parcel hasn’t come here either. I haven’t heard a word from Don and I am so disappointed. I wonder what it is that I have done to make people so uncooperative (note, I stopped just short of saying ‘uncharitable’). I am trying to understand things from their points of view but it’s hard. And you know me – blunt, honest and intense as ever.

Grizz, I need the whole story, I really do. I am kind of marooned here with my version of events – I need to put things into perspective and find a balance. I can’t do that on my own. And I firmly, firmly believe that you can help to straighten things out down here. You were always a persuasive person but now you have an unearthly power to shape events and I am asking you to do that. Honey, I only want what you wanted for me – I am not asking for anything more. OK, that’s not completely true – there are parts of your story that I am missing and I would like to have the missing pieces filled in. Some of the things I’m wanting are so benign (like your birth date) and some are absolute showstoppers (think back to the 11th and the 12th, you know what I mean). And if you care about me like you said you did then I deserve these answers. Don’t get me wrong – I am not doubting you or loving or missing you any less! I know you know (and you knew then, too) that I love you and there isn’t any answer that I might get that might change that – I know who you are, Keith, and you are with me always.

My mother was the nicest woman I ever met and there are many, many people in Michigan (and elsewhere) who would agree with that. Well, Keith, you are the nicest, nicest man I ever met. How many thousands of men do you suppose I’ve met in my life? – relatives, boyfriends, teachers, workmates, acquaintances, neighbours, friends – and you are the nicest of them all. Always so enthusiastic, so polite and considerate, so funny, so talented, so fearless, so smart, so belligerent (LOL! – to be fair, I had to say it). How, in the name of God, could I not fall in love with you?

So our time together was pretty short and I fell in love with you long before you fell in love with me. But I know that you know me and you know me through and through. And, ya’, there’s things that you love about me. I am trying soooo hard to keep your Promises and I’m trying not to let these things like "the family" come between us or turn me into a sad and bitter woman. You deserve better than that.

I think that you might remember me telling you about the last letter that my mother wrote to me – it was postmarked 20 September 1991 and she had a severe stroke on the 21st and died before the letter arrived. I can see it here on my desk and it is sitting here waiting to be paired up with the letter that you wrote to me before you died and that your "family" apparently has not sent. I think that perhaps you have to accept that the trust you put in them was perhaps misplaced.

But overall, today was good – I had a good, warm, peaceful feeling about you all day today and only a few tears tonight while writing this. Thank you for making me feel good and feeling good about myself. Thank God you sent me so many pictures! – I’d be frantic without them (and you know, I’d take a thousand more). I want to hear the stories you told that Saturday night, I wanted to be one of the ones there listening and laughing with you. It hurts a bit to have been excluded when I don’t know why. I will wait until the end of the month and then I will write Don again – I’m sure he thinks that I am 1) a terrible pest and 2) completely nuts. Guilty as charged – I’m nuts about you, Grizz.

So I’m loving and missing you heaps as always. Here’s a massive hug to wrap yourself up in: **HUG** ! Love always –

- Susan

P.S.: I think I felt so good today because of your presence here yesterday and its effect on me – it was just such a warm, steady, "right" sort of a feeling. I hope I make you feel like that, too.

P.P.S.: Dunno why but I just got thinking about your Mom and wondering how she is doing. Like I said, I hope they never told her.

Sunday night, 22 May 2005 [11:30 p.m.]:

Hey there, dude! I bet you know what I’m going to write about….

For two or three hours today, I could feel you here with us, honey. I even had this feeling of warmth all down my right arm. You didn’t stand in front of me as if you were going to give me a hug (like I expected you to) and you didn’t follow around behind me. You stayed right beside me the whole time you were here – it felt really good. I don’t know how to describe it but it was as if you were doing what ever I was doing right along with me. And you seemed really at peace and you liked your time here and you seemed to like this funny old house. You didn’t leave until we sat down to have dinner. Please come again and come often – I would love it if you would stay here with us. But whatever happens, please go visit your daughter like that, she needs you honey. Keith, no matter how strong you might think that she is, she still needs her father so go to her, OK?

Grizz, I have to go get ready for bed ‘cuz I’m working tomorrow. Again, I owe you my thanks ‘cuz it was wonderful having your spirit here with us today. Hope you come again soon. I love you heaps –

- Susan

P.S.: I have decided not to get my tatt right now. I think that I will wait until I have set aside the money for my trip to BC first before I get the tatt. It’s a lot of money and I’m always gonna have my skin available as a canvas, ya’ know? So I’ll save up the airfare and then enough spending money and then I can worry about getting the $$ together for my rather cool design (I’ll admit I’ve kinda thought about getting the smaller "KD" tatt in the meantime – what have you unleashed??? LOL!).

Sunday afternoon, 22 May 2005 [4:30 p.m.]:

Hi, Grizz, it’s me again.

Well, last night was nothing to write home about – I got there late and had a hard time finding a seat. The group was quite good – the first set (of which I missed most of) was songs of various rock/pop artists and the second set was all ABBA. Again, not exactly my favourite. The longhaired man wasn’t there, BTW.

A beautiful day again today and I’ve gotten a lot done around the house. For some reason I’ve been thinking about you a lot – more so than usual. I have to confess – I dialled the Woodstock Drive number today and hung up after three rings. Not sure if anyone answered or not. It must have been about five something Saturday afternoon there. I wish that I had the nerve to say, "Hello, this is Susan and I would like my package. Please send it to Don and he will forward it on to me." (There I go, getting poor Don into strife.) Today you just felt as if you were around, like you were part of the place. I hope that’s true, that you are here and that you feel comfortable here. I think that you either belong in the woods or lakes and rivers or you belong here with us or with your daughter. I sure need you and I’m sure she misses you as well. I hope that in spite of everything that she is able to get on with her studies and do justice to them. Anyway, honey, keep coming back – it’s a great comfort to me, I can tell you!

Guess what! I bought an oil painting on eBay! It is sooo cute – it’s of an orangutan baby in the Houston, TX Zoo and it was done by a fellow blogmate, Vernita. She has been so supportive of me through this whole thing and it will be extra nice to have something of hers here in the house. I bid thinking I’d sort of get the bidding going and was the only bidder so I won with a bid that just didn’t do the painting justice – especially as she is donating half the proceeds to the Ronald McDonald House of Houston. Her blog is at: http://txsauce.blogspot.com/ and there are some really nice thoughts there.

Just sitting here daydreaming and listening to "Rough Boy". For some reason I was thinking of Williams Lake today and that place you went to for coffee. I wonder if you ever got any chicks from the area to contact you via LL since it was Williams Lake that you listed as where you were from. You never picked up on my troll either, honey, which I never told you about and took down after a short time ‘cuz I figured it was a bit dishonest of me. Not to mention it could have wound up hurting someone.

I’m going to close and go do some more housework before it gets too dark. BTW – there were two bul buls in the yard today – haven’t seen any in quite a while.

Not sure if I’ll write again tonight. I love you, sweetheart…

- Susan

Sunday afternoon, 22 May 2005 [4:30 p.m.]:

Hi, Grizz, it’s me again.

Well, last night was nothing to write home about – I got there late and had a hard time finding a seat. The group was quite good – the first set (of which I missed most of) was songs of various rock/pop artists and the second set was all ABBA. Again, not exactly my favourite. The longhaired man wasn’t there, BTW.

A beautiful day again today and I’ve gotten a lot done around the house. For some reason I’ve been thinking about you a lot – more so than usual. I have to confess – I dialled the Woodstock Drive number today and hung up after three rings. Not sure if anyone answered or not. It must have been about five something Saturday afternoon there. I wish that I had the nerve to say, "Hello, this is Susan and I would like my package. Please send it to Don and he will forward it on to me." (There I go, getting poor Don into strife.) Today you just felt as if you were around, like you were part of the place. I hope that’s true, that you are here and that you feel comfortable here. I think that you either belong in the woods or lakes and rivers or you belong here with us or with your daughter. I sure need you and I’m sure she misses you as well. I hope that in spite of everything that she is able to get on with her studies and do justice to them. Anyway, honey, keep coming back – it’s a great comfort to me, I can tell you!

Guess what! I bought an oil painting on eBay! It is sooo cute – it’s of an orangutan baby in the Houston, TX Zoo and it was done by a fellow blogmate, Vernita. She has been so supportive of me through this whole thing and it will be extra nice to have something of hers here in the house. I bid thinking I’d sort of get the bidding going and was the only bidder so I won with a bid that just didn’t do the painting justice – especially as she is donating half the proceeds to the Ronald McDonald House of Houston. Her blog is at: http://txsauce.blogspot.com/ and there are some really nice thoughts there.

Just sitting here daydreaming and listening to "Rough Boy". For some reason I was thinking of Williams Lake today and that place you went to for coffee. I wonder if you ever got any chicks from the area to contact you via LL since it was Williams Lake that you listed as where you were from. You never picked up on my troll either, honey, which I never told you about and took down after a short time ‘cuz I figured it was a bit dishonest of me. Not to mention it could have wound up hurting someone.

I’m going to close and go do some more housework before it gets too dark. BTW – there were two bul buls in the yard today – haven’t seen any in quite a while.

Not sure if I’ll write again tonight. I love you, sweetheart…

- Susan

May 24, 2005

Saturday afternoon, 21 May 2005 [5:00 p.m.]:

Hey, ya’, my treasured friend. Of course, I am missing you as much as always.

Today was absolutely glorious! Just a hint of chill and sparkling sunlight. We have two large poinsettias in the back yard and with the daylight hours shorter, they are just going for it. Their red colour is so eye-catching and splendid – but I don’t think they work as cut flowers. You know them – in the Northern Hemisphere you get them at Christmas time. Sadly the white and lemon frangipani (plumeria) and the pink/red hibiscus are suffering from the short, chilly days and starting to lose leaves and flowers. The neighbour (Steve) says that the hibiscus must be many years old because it is so big. One more month to go and the days will slowly start to get longer, thank God. BTW – my birthday is on the 22nd of June – the longest day up North, but the shortest day down here.

Honey, I am going out tonight. I am going to that club where I saw the Sage logo on Justin’s SUV. In fact, I’m going to become a member if it doesn’t cost too much, as they seem to have a lot of things on. BTW on Friday on my way to Dr Ross’ Justin was directly in front of me in a turning lane. I was going to get out and go tell him about Dan’s site losing their archived data but the light changed and he was gone. Funny to run in to him again, given the millions of people here in Sydney.

Also today I coloured my hair. I went from medium-dark brown with a reddish cast to a sort of mahogany colour. When I was a kid and up until my thirties, my hair was a chestnut colour – curly when I was young and gradually going to wavy and then mainly straight. But after Warwick was born it completely changed – it went to spiral curls and got a lot darker. I like my natural hair colour (chestnut) but I can’t seem to find the shade that my hair was. Anyway, right now it’s mahogany red! Keith, I love the red in your hair – imagine what mischief us two redheads could get up to!!! ;-)

Wondered a bit today about Colleen, Alison and Don and what is going on with them. In a case of eternal (and perhaps misplaced) optimism, I am still looking for your package. The fact that somebody is going against your last wishes is definitely going against the grain here. I try not to get angry (I mean, it doesn’t do any good, does it, and it only hurts me and not them anyway) but it’s hard. I like to be a nice person and be thought of as a nice person but some of my pain is turning to anger nonetheless. I know it sounds weird but if I had whatever it is that you sent me I think I could perhaps start making steps to accept your death and its finality. But there is a lot of unfinished business flying around and I seem to be trapped in an endless loop of grieving.

I hope your daughter is OK – I feel for her, I really do. Thank God that you two had such a good relationship. I’m sorry that things didn’t work out in the end with Craig. Craig D. – if by some chance you come to read this I want you to know that your father loved you very, very much and wanted so very much for things to be mended between you two. Let go of whatever it is that is keeping you apart and, even though he is gone, accept him back into your life. It will do you both good.

OK – well, that was a bit emotional for me, your intense Tiger. I’m going to go rustle up something for dinner and dry up these tears before I go out. I’ll write you tomorrow or maybe even after I get home tonight. Back with you soon –

- love, Susan

Friday night, 20 May 2005 [11:30 p.m.]:

Hey, ya, my honey.

A beautiful, but turning very chilly, day today. Had about two major crying sessions and I feel so terrible afterwards. Somehow it has to stop.

Saw Dr Ross today and he asked me an insightful question – "What would Keith say if he was standing in this room right now?". And I told him that you’d wrap me up in the biggest, longest hug and then you’d kiss me on the forehead and you’d ask me to move on. Yes, I know that’s what you’d ask me. And Dr Ross asked me if you’d ask about my Promises and I said that you wouldn’t because you already know how I feel about them and what I’m doing about them and you know everything that there is to know about me. It’s as if my soul is completely stripped down and transparent to you and you know the good things, the bad things, the mediocre things. I guess that makes us soulmates in a way.

It’s cold and I’m feeling pretty beat up right now so I think it’s time for bed. k, Grizz, I’ll write again tomorrow. Please enjoy yourself and enjoy being with your friends and family – I bet your grandpa is pleased as anything to have you back with him again. I wish you’d work out a way to let me join you – we sure could have some good times, that’s for sure [(and I guarantee that by the time I’m done with you, I’ll turn you into an avid walleye fisherman) or leave the walleye fishing to me and you can become an epicure of campfire-cooked walleye – yum!].

So keep your lines tight and don’t forget those of us down here that love you – you can see it all now, can’t you? Whisper in Don’s ear so that he’ll get in touch and be willing to help me out. And Ken – help him to be receptive when he eventually get the letter that I’ll be sending him. I am missing you so very much.

- S.

May 23, 2005

Thursday night, 19 May 2005 [10:30 p.m.]:

Hi, honey, it’s me.

Gorgeous but chilly day today – the sun was out and the rain had washed everything, even the air, clean so it was beautiful but the sun had no warmth to it.

I left work early today as they owe me so many back hours and so I had a longer-then-usual session at the gym. Did I tell you that I bought a pair of black leather weight gloves – and the dye keeps coming out of them and staining my hands! Got the gloves mainly to protect my rings from getting scratched on the barbels and to keep me from getting calluses. On the way to the gym I stopped at the Walter Street house to see if the package had come there but the guy there was a visitor and didn’t know. He asked me to come back but when I went there after the gym no one was home. I kind of think that they haven’t received it but I am going to keep trying – I’ll make it arrive by force of will alone.

Honey, I know that I’ve been sounding a bit snarky lately and you’re not used to me being like that but I am starting to get angry – no, not with you, sweetheart, but with Alison and Colleen and whoever else is being a general pain in the a$$. It just isn’t right and in my opinion it is blocking me from starting to heal from the effect your death has had on me. I have so little to hold on to! I can’t complete the story, I can’t fix it in my mind (rest assured, it is firmly fixed in my heart), I can’t seem to make it make any kind of sense.

Grizz, not a moment goes by that I don’t think of you and miss you. When I get paid next week I’ll start putting money aside for my Canadian trip – it’ll be like a pilgrimage, really. Maybe when I get back to Oz after saying goodbye to you I’ll be able to live more in the moment and not be so hung up on you and our relationship. I’m never going to love you any less, I’m always going to be totally thankful that we had the time that we did have and I will always honour you. But, maybe, I can learn not to weep so and hurt so much inside. Help me if you can, my Grizz.

Thank you for loving me like you did –

- Susan

May 22, 2005

Wednesday night, 18 May 2005 [10:30 p.m.]:

Hi, there, honey.

It’s only ten thirty and it feels like hours later to me – going to go to bed soon. Had an average sort of a day – a bit teary at times but generally OK overall. Went through all your photos today trying to work out which ones I will have to have reprinted. It sure brought back some memories!

Grizz, it was three months ago this evening that I got Don’s first email. He hasn’t replied BTW, I hope he hasn’t changed his mind. I mean if you look at it from his side, he’s the one that’s there and has to put up with them and I am just someone from faraway that he’s just heard about. I am hoping that he feels some sort of loyalty to you that makes him want to see the right thing done, in spite of what ‘the family’ thinks. The hat (and whatever else there is) is, after all, mine.

Second day back at the gym and, damn, I’ve got some sore pecs! I’ll be sore tomorrow for sure.

Been thinking a lot about Ken. I wish that he’d write me… eventually, I am sure that I will write him – can’t not, really. I can pretty much see how you had it all set up and I sure would have been a fly in the ointment if I had shown up that Saturday. But I maintain (and will always do so) that I should have been there. I wouldn’t be surprised that knowing what you know now you’d want me there, too. But we each did the best we could, didn’t we, honey?

I’m going to leave you now, my treasure. I hope I see you soon ‘cuz I miss you so very much. I wish that I could honour you the way you have honoured me – you will always, always be treasured and loved. I wish I could still spoil you like I used to do. Tell Clayton that I want to see him.

Now go have some fun – this time is your time. All my love –

- Susan

Tuesday night, 17 May 2005 [11:45 p.m.]:

Hey, ya’, my Grizz.

Rainy, chilly day today. Thought of you heaps. Tina Turner’s "Be Tender With Me Baby" came on the iPod while I was driving to the gym and I burst into tears. There I am, sobbing, with the windscreen obscured with rain and my eyes obscured with tears. I’m not sure if I’ve put up those lyrics or not, so here they are:

"Be Tender With Me Baby" – Tina Turner

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.

Why does my heart keep on hurting,
why do I feel like I do?
I hope you see this is not really me
that it's just a phase that I'm going through.

I miss you so, Keith. I don’t know how I’m ever going to get through this without a bit more support than I’ve had. I don’t think you’d understand, having so many friends and family and all. Everybody in BC has somebody that they can turn to but what about me?

OK, this is going to sound harsh but it’s the way I feel at the moment and when I say it I want you to remember that I love you completely and feeling like this doesn’t change that – but you didn’t have the b*lls to ring me and say goodbye. You just thought that I’d "get over it", didn’t you? [And of course, you thought that Alison would ring me and that somebody or other would send the package you had for me – so they’ve screwed you over just like they’ve screwed me and that’s their way of honouring you. Major, big-time suckage.]

Anyway, I listened to ZZ Top’s "Afterburner" LP on my iPod at the gym – cracked me up as per usual.

It’s a bit cold and damp and I’m going to post a few of the old blogs and get ready for bed. I’ve got the waterbed heater on so it will be all cosy and of course I’ve got your photo waiting on the bedside table for me. I hope there won’t be any more tears tonight, you’d think it wouldn’t be physically possible to produce so many. What’s that old song title – "Cry Me a River"? Ya’, I’d believe it. What did you call me – oh, yeah "intense" – I think I’ll get "Beware – I cry at weddings and movies" tattooed on my forehead.

I love you heaps, Keith, and can’t stop missing you. Please don’t leave me alone. I’m going through that "long dark night of the soul" thing, ‘cept it’s not a night, it’s months and months. I need to feel you near me, I need to have somebody acknowledge my loss and no one wants to. Colleen gets the sympathy, not me. And after what you told me, Christ, it’s so unbelievable as to be laughable in a sick sort of way. Here I am, at once the luckiest and unluckiest of women.

So, I’m going and I’ll see you later. I’ll write again soon. Hope you’re happy and well. Ya’, I’m flipping out a bit but I don’t want you to worry!!! Just appreciate that I loved you as best as I could, OK?

Always –

- S.

Monday night, 16 May 2005 [11:45 p.m.]:

Hi, there, my dearest honey.

I’ve just been sitting here looking at the closeup of your face from the 31st of January. Goddamn it, honey, I should have been there. Ya’, you did look like sh*t but you have to believe that didn’t matter to me. This is so goddamned hard and so bloody wonderful at the same time. I was so bloody fortunate and then everything just imploded and I am left with little more than memories and tears. Oh, my God, my honey, I miss you so! I honestly didn’t know that I could feel so deeply and grieve so much. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you….

I wanted to call Colleen’s house today. I almost did and I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s some kind of a link to you, I don’t know. Don hasn’t replied and the package has not yet come.

I’ve been a bit glum the last two or three days – sort of an essential depression or something.

In spite of that, I went to the gym after work tonight – it was the first time back since we started the move. I bought some black weight gloves to protect my rings and keep the calluses down (my skin sort of gets pinched between the weight and my rings and it’s a bit uncomfortable). I did most of the machines tonight and I’m sure I’ll feel it tomorrow or Wednesday. I wish you could see me, honey – can you? I think I probably look a lot better than you thought I did – I mean it, those graduation photos were terrible and that’s all you ever got to see. I’ve got Alanis Morissette "Thank U" playing right now: "The moment I let go of it, was the moment I got more than I could handle. The moment I jumped off of it, was the moment I touched down." I wasn’t looking for you, honey, and I don’t think that you were looking for me – but in spite of that we found each other. And we sure had some good times and learned to love each other and that’s just the biggest gift.

So I’m going to say ‘goodnight’, Keith, and go and try and sleep. Lots of tears tonight so I don’t know how I’ll go… If you family has done what they have in an attempt to upset me, they have done a f*cking good job. I am completely distraught and almost sick to my stomach I am so upset. I want to throw this goddamned keyboard against the wall. I couldn’t fix you and now I can’t fix me. But I go on, I plod on and, sadly, there will be a tomorrow for me. Tomorrow is a gift from God and I don’t even want it since it doesn’t have you in it anymore. Honey, I don’t want to wait until I’m an old lady to die and then see you again – I want you now, RIGHT NOW, and I am not a strong enough, brave enough person to off myself and get to jump the queue and see you that way.

Grizz, you need to come and visit me… and please, for God’s sake, deal with those damn people in BC. I love you, honey, but this is just getting to be too much.

I miss you and I’ll write to you again tomorrow….

- Susan

May 21, 2005

Sunday night, 15 May 2005 [8:30 p.m.]:

Hey ya’, sweetieheart, it’s me again.

I’ve just been posting some of the old blogs up on the site and I’m feeling a bit choked up – there’s a lot going on in these pages, isn’t there? I also went to the scrapbooking place that I like and sorted through your photos (I also had some of them reprinted today). It’s the first step to actually starting on your pages – wow, it is going to be such a big job! Leanne from the scrapbook place had a look at the number of photos that I had and she reckons that I am going to need two albums to fit them all in. And she hasn’t seen all the emails and MSN Messages (the ones I kept from January on – I lost all the rest – remember?) and blog pages. Do you remember Hans from the Netherlands? He sent me his OK to use that picture you took of him and Kisa and he also sent his article on his patterns but I’m having a problem. The photo looks fine on screen but when I go to place it, it goes from like 16 million colours to something like 256 colours and looks awful – I don’t know what to do about it.

Honey, I’m going to leave it there for now. I’m feeling a bit down, not depressed really, but a little off-colour. I think I’ll have one of my "talks" with you later when I get into bed, OK? BTW: today was absolutely gorgeous and I saw a sulphur-crested cockatoo out the window at the scrapbooking place.

Be happy and know that I love you –

- S.

Saturday night, 14 April 2005 [11:00 p.m.]:

Hi there, Grizz, it’s me – thinking of you, missing you, loving you.

I went out tonight and just got home. Went to a "tribute" show at a club that I belong to. I missed the first set and got there just in time for the second set. Unfortunately for me, they played a lot of Neil Diamond and songs from "Grease" which aren’t really my favourites. They did do "Brown-eyed Girl" which brought back a lot of memories of earlier times. Damn, honey, I sure wish that we could go out and listen to some music together.

Had to be at the Uni early today as we were putting on an ultrasonography seminar. Had to help out with registrations, "meet and greet" and doing the certificates for the attendees. We’ve got this cool certificate paper with the University crest on it – hey, I could do one of those ‘university degrees for $10’ sites – LOL!

You felt really close to me all day today – it’s a nice feeling. Damn, I wish I could have you back! That's another thing that I was thinking today - what a sad love story it is. Even after these months have gone by I still can hardly believe that you are gone. No, I have to say it stronger than that – I don’t completely accept that you are gone and it’s final. I can’t believe my good luck to have met you – I can’t believe my bad luck to have lost you.

I know you tried to apologise for hurting me and I even think that you might have wished that we had never met – that it would have been easier on me that way. Even knowing what I know now I still would have gone for it with you – honey, you are the very, very best. I guess maybe that’s the only regret that I have – that I am completely screwed as regards to other men. I mean, your average guy just doesn’t have a prayer compared to you. God made you, sweetheart, and then he broke the mold.

I was also thinking today how you said that you loved me more than anybody else could. You tell me that you love me and then five days later you are gone – oh, honey, it is so hard and I miss you so! I hang on to that image of you the day before you went to Paul’s ranch – you were on such a high and we talked about so many things and you sounded so well! "We’ll get together when we can" just rings in my mind and I will never forget any aspect of that last day that we had contact. Never, honey, never. I just hope that at the end of it all that you will be waiting for me. Yeah, I would like to meet somebody else, but when it all comes to an end at Heaven’s gate it’s you that I want standing before me. You said, "No one could love you more for sure" – now please make it true, honey, and help me in this life and wait for me in the other. Like you said to me "I have to know it."

I am getting to sad – I have to go. You would not believe what you have done to my face – my eyes are all red and puffy all the time – they just cannot stand up to all these tears. And I hate it when I get suicidal and feel like I could do anything to be with you. And, yes, I’m pretty sure that you would hate me feeling that way and would feel like I am breaking my Promises to you. It would help me, honey, if you and Clayton would visit me from time to time – PLEASE let me know it’s you, OK? I know that I said in a previous post that I wouldn’t summon you and that I would let you be to come or go as you wish but, my honey, I am really needing you right now. Please, honey, please – it is just too hard being without you.

Lost and broken-hearted and loving you –

- S.

P.S.: Did you know that your "fishingfool" and "K" names are still showing up on MSN Messenger? When they got the cable hooked up and I logged into Messenger, I just about died when your names came up on the screen. There they are, three months later, as if I needed anything to remind me of you – you are always with me, do you get that?

Friday night, 13 May 2005 [9:00 p.m.]:

Hello, my very best buddy.

Been having lots of problems with the internet connection – it keeps dropping out. I’ve been sitting here posting these older posts to the blog while I have the connection – I think that I’m caught up to about the 20th of April. Reading some of them has really choked me up and brought back lots of emotions and memories. Honey, I do so truly love you, so of course I miss you so. This loving/losing you thing is the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life. You lift me up so high, but at the same time I feel as if I am being crushed under an enormous weight. Ya’, I see now why you tried to apologise to me - but I refuse to accept it because I won’t negate any part of it.

I’m not going to write much more – have to be out at the Uni early tomorrow morning because we are running a sonography workshop and I have to be there to help register the participants.

ZZ Top has just played "Rough Boy" and now "Stages". Thanks for getting me to listen to them.

OK, honey, I have to go – send me a dream tonight or bring Clayton to meet me. It was a chilly, wet autumn day and I sure could use a nice warm hug! Always your Tiger –

- S.

May 20, 2005

Thursday night, 12 May 2005 [11:00 p.m.]:

Hello, Grizz – how ya’ doin’?

Today was a rather sad anniversary for me but, in spite of that, I got through it just fine. Work was crazy (Kerrie was away again) but I coped. Thought of you heaps and it was good to be able to see the photos on the wall to remind me of better times.

In good news – we got rain today! Not much but at least it was some: we haven’t had any for ages. Also, I went to a VIP night at the scrapbooking place and got lots of papers and stuff for your album. It’s such a big task but at least I have the photos on disk so if they get spoiled I can always print them again.

Oh, another cool thing happened today! I was walking back from the cashier’s office on Campus and I ran across one of the biomedical/biochemistry lecturers and research supervisors. So we had a chat and I told him about my idea for a Masters by research in PV and that I was looking to frame the research question and he said to come up and see him and we’d have a chat. Keith, I’m going to make you very proud.

No, no package from you and with the rain tonight there are no stars, either. ;-(

Well, you saw a nasty side of me last night, didn’t you? Honestly, Keith, I have tried to be nice and accepting and considerate of your family all along but I have just had it. I simply cannot understand the mentality. And I am stung by their attitude towards me (who only tried to love you the best I could) and their disregard of your last wishes. It makes no sense at all. Except that I did say one time that we are all grieving and each in our own way and grief can make people do some strange things.

Wow! I just had a thought – maybe I should make the album that I was going to make for Alison for your daughter instead! Pity I don’t have any pictures of you two together or pictures of her and Craig when they were little. Maybe if I do the album for Alison your family will learn to trust me and I can get the photos I need for your daughter’s album. There’s another possibility – that Alison or your daughter have taken up scrapbooking and are doing ones for themselves.

Honey, I have to go – I didn’t go to bed last night until after 3:30 a.m. and I have some work to do before I can go to bed. So I’m going to keep this short and say g’night.

Don’t worry, honey, love will see me through and I’ll be alright. I promise.
Three months on and I am as crazy about you as ever. And I don’t think that’s ever going to change. All my love –

- S.

May 19, 2005

early Thursday morning, 12 May 2005 [1:15 a.m.]:

Oh, honey, it’s another sad day! You died three months ago. Do you know what that means? We have now been apart for as long as we have been together. It is so sad – the river of time is bearing me further and further from you. I haven’t stopped loving you, I haven’t stopped missing you, I haven’t stopped honouring you in my heart. I got the new ISPs cable modem on this afternoon – and Don never replied to me about the package like he said that he would. Maybe he thinks that by now I’m "over you" and the package doesn’t matter. Maybe he feels like he’s the one stuck in the middle, maybe he feels like he wants to maintain a good relationship with "the family" – I’ve got no idea. He said he’d write around the 21st of April but there’s been nothing. I sent him an email from my staff account at Uni - maybe he’ll reply there. I hate to say it, but I really need him because he’s my key to understanding aspects of you. I have questions that I firmly believe that I need and deserve answers to. Once Don said that you "thought highly" of me so why don’t I deserve a little consideration?

I have been working on my blog tonight – I have so many pages that have to be posted! I started with posts from early April and several of them brought tears to my eyes. Keith – I just adore you and it is so hard re-reading some of what I have written: at times so sad, so hopeful, so innocent, so earnest, so stupid. What am I going to do with nowhere to put my love for you? I appreciate the fact that you tried to keep from hurting me, I do, sweetheart, I do. But I am lost without you and don’t know my way in the world any longer. I’d do ANYTHING to have you back. And I know that isn’t possible. So I want the next best thing – and that’s news about you and contact with your friends and tangible evidence of you – like your beloved Sage hat. Sure, I can get a hat from Justin but it won’t be your hat – the hat you wore for over two years. You wore it in Abbotsford, you wore it in 108, your wore it in Mexico. And, goddamn it, I want it – you gave it to me – IT’S MINE!!! I am sick to death of being nicely, nicely me – always worried about everybody else - so sweet about Alison and your nephews and nieces, etc. You read my blog and I sound like such a fool – so concerned about everybody while I get stabbed in the back. So that’s it – I care about Don and Ken and your daughter – AND EVERYBODY ELSE INVOLVED CAN GO AND GET SCREWED! That’s it – no more Ms. Nice Guy. As far as the album that I am making for Alison – well, I will have to see. I will probably go ahead and make it because I said that I would but don’t hold me to it.

I know you and Alison loved each other and I’m glad about that. But I think your sister has a few issues – go on, have a good read of your Dad’s obituary and see what I mean. It’s patently obvious that she wrote it – Jocelyn, Bill and you barely get a look in. So, Alison, if the fact that MY hat hasn’t been sent has anything to do with you, well all I’m gonna say right now is :-P . And, girl, I know where you live and I don’t have a problem in the world with knocking on your door and asking for it. And remember – NEVER come between a tiger and her cub.

Mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it any more –

- Susan

P.S.: Keith, honey, I love you so. But all this crap is pissing me off – I have tried to be "nice", I have tried to be patient, I have tried to be accepting. But I find that recently my grieving is turning to anger. I loved you well, the very best that I could, and I do not deserve what is happening. Please come and visit me because I need your spirit, honey, I really do.

Tuesday night, 10 May 2005 [10:00 p.m.]:

Hey ya’, Grizz.

We were gifted with another gorgeous day – the temp. got up to 26ºC (and I’d translate for the Fahrenheit crowd if I was on the internet!). Students were taking advantage of the balmy weather and were lying all over the grass when I went over to the canteen to get something to drink.

I took your photo CD in but the prints need a lot of work – I will have to go back and redo a lot of them – some have cropping problems and other are all pixel-y. Luckily they only cost 20º¢ per print! Honey, a lot of the photos you sent me are really small (like 16k) and I’m not sure what I’m going to do to get the best quality for the album. Thank heavens that you sent me large versions of the cub and Quesnel photos.

No, the parcel has not come. And I haven’t had a chance to check my Uni staff email for the last two days and I’m not at work tomorrow so I don’t know if Don has written me or not. I also haven’t written Justin about Dan B’s fly fishing site. Maybe I’m holding back ‘cuz I don’t want a repeat of what happened when I got a hold of Fly Anglers OnLine. What an incredible drama and for what? I doubt that I will ever understand.

Honey, I am sooo busy with work and all my "extra curricular" activities. But even so, I miss you so! All the time, everyday. Just see your face before me almost 100% of the time (and you have such a beautiful face!) – I just want to reach out and touch you, to stroke your face and then wrap you up in the biggest hug! But we have to wait for that, don’t we?

Here’s a hug for now - . Love, ya’, Grizz.

- Susan

Monday night, 9 May 2005 [9:30 p.m.]:

Hello, my much-missed honey.

Today was even more gorgeous than yesterday – it seemed like a spring, not an autumn, day. Lots of lorikeets flying about. Busy, busy, busy with work – I cannot keep up trying to fill the two positions, no matter how hard I try. Kerrie comes back tomorrow and she comes back to a huge mess. Well, I did the best that I could.

The sky is beautiful tonight, too. I especially like thinking of you when I look at the South Cross [but I wish I could see Ursa Major, too! ;-( ]. I will just have to wait until November, I guess. Speaking of waiting – no, no parcel yet. Damn, it is starting to piss me off.

Oh, ya’, look at the date! Three months – it has been three months since we spoke on the ‘phone – I can hardly believe it. And I don’t miss you any less now then I did then. You were so funny that day! You were full of beans and you didn’t seem sick at all during that second ‘phone call that day. I really do think that when we spoke that you really did intend getting in touch with me before it was too late but then, for whatever reason, you didn’t. Your not saying goodbye has made it a bit hard, I must admit. But as I’ve said over and over – no regrets, sweetheart. I don’t have to know your reasons to accept them, Keith. I have always loved your childlike, playful, go-for-it nature and I would never try to change you – why change the very best?

Anyway, sweetie, I’m gonna go watch some TV ("Oz" from HBO – Wozza and I really like it) and then go to bed – I am really tired tonight.

Thinking of you, loving you, missing you – every minute.

- S.

Sunday night, 8 May 2005 [11:00 p.m.]:

Hey, ya’, Keith.

Today was a beautiful, beautiful day. And I never cried at all!

I went to the scrapbook place and finished the two pages for my girlfriend and I think they look pretty good (esp. when you consider that they’re just the second and third pages I’ve ever done). Then I drove out to Uni to try and get caught up on work. I was there about 4-1/2 hours and still have hours of work ahead of me. The computer that I have in my office is infuriating – it is so slow and old and takes forever to open pages and switch windows, etc.

I took my new mini USB drive out there with our photos on it but couldn’t get the burner to work on either my or Kerrie’s machine. Bummer. I’ll get Kerrie or Graeme (one of our IT guys) to help me with it. It will be great to have them printed out on proper photo paper. Today I also put up your Spring salmon photo that I love up as my wallpaper. Wish you were here to ask – the photo itself looks great but the quality of the wallpaper version is awful. It’s way too dark and you can hardly see your beautiful face. ;-(

There were heaps of birds on Campus today. Saw lots of cockatoos and lorikeets and watched a honeyeater have a swim in a birdbath. So funny when he went to fly off – he was so wet he was almost too heavy to fly away and only just made it up into a nearby tree.

"Rough Boy" is playing right now… I so wish we could have spent more time together – so many things to do and to show each other! Oh, sh*t, that just made me think of Jimmi – honey you should have made it possible for all of us to get together. I know that contact would have made things better for me and maybe better for some others – you’ve left an awful hole in our minds and hearts!

k, honey, I am going to close here and say goodnight. Please give everyone a hug from me – and a great, ginormous Grizz-sized hug for you. I love you, sweetheart.

- Susan

May 18, 2005

Saturday night, 7 May 2005 [11:40 p.m.]:

Hi, honey. I am so glad to tell you that I am sooo much better today! ;-)

Got woken early by two blokes that were here to start digging up the conduit for the internet cable. But they are only allowed to dig the council’s land (local government), the telecom company will come out next week (I hope) to dig the part from the sidewalk to the house. Then, finally, the cable and modem can be installed!


Went to the scrapbooking place and worked on the layout for my girlfriend. Then I went and bought a little 256Mb USB drive and loaded all of your photos and mine on it. Also bought some CD-Rs. I’m going into work tomorrow (Sunday) because there is so much work piled up and while I’m there I’m going to put your pictures on CD. Not just to get prints done electronically, but also for safekeeping, in case I get a ‘puter virus or something.

Honey, it’s almost midnight and I’m going to say ‘night, Grizz. Bet that little soldier surprised you this morning! Half your luck tomorrow! LOL!

With love and laughs as per usual –

- your Susan

Friday night, 6 May 2005 [11:00 p.m.]:

Oh, Keith, honey…

Sweetheart, this has been the worst day since you’ve gone, maybe even the worst day of my life. I am all cried out. I don’t know what to do. I can’t trust myself any more. I am torn in opposite directions. There’s my pretend happy-face that I put on for work and then there’s the reality. Now I know why you said you were so sorry. You always knew, didn’t you? But it’s too late for me and I can’t be fixed. I have no idea how to live the life that you wanted for me now that you are gone. The reality is that right now it’s not how to live, but that I don’t want to live at all. Yeah, I still recognise beauty when I see it and know it’s a gift but it’s not enough any more. Not nearly enough.

Cats know I’m upset – Tzatziki just came and started head-butting my legs. My eyes and cheeks feel terrible from the tears. If you could see me, you’d be horrified. I bloody wish I knew somewhere that I could go out tomorrow night – like that weekend when I went to the bush band. That’s what I need – an absolutely torrid relationship that would push you to the sidelines. You’re never, ever going to ‘leave the field’, you are just too much a part of me and I care too much for you for that. I told you – I am NEVER going to ‘get over’ you. Don’t want to, aren’t going to. Face it, Grizz, you somehow wound up with me and I’m here for the long haul. It’s just such a goddamned shame that you can’t be around for us to share a relationship that had so much potential. We were good to each other in a way that neither of us had ever experienced before and I’m selfish enough to have wanted more, more, more of it. So this is a good time for me to say thank you again to you for everything you did, for everything you are, for how well you loved me.

I really don’t know if I am ever going to be ‘OK’. I know that you want me to have a great life – you were so sweet the way you always wanted the best for your friends – but I don’t know how to do it. Ya’, my Canuck, I treasure you and love you and miss you with every heartbeat. Help me whenever you get the time and inclination but most of all, most of all, I want you to have a great time and absolutely spoil yourself and just go for it. For once, just live for yourself and please yourself and really all the rest of us can just get screwed ‘cuz right now is your time. Keith, I never, ever told you what to do but right now I am – do exactly what you want to do and do it on your terms.

I don’t have to tell you I love you because you know it and as you said, "We’ll get together when we can".

- S.

Thursday evening, 5 May 2005 [8:00 p.m.]:

Hi, honey. Jeez, I just came in from work (worked late) and didn’t even think to look up at the stars – that’s no good, is it?

There is a field adjacent to the work carpark that always seems to have some form or the other of wildlife in it. Usually we see these huge chocolate brown hares with black floppy ears. They are so big that the first time I saw one, I thought it was a fox. This morning there was a single beautiful crane. Its head was white with a long thick beak and it was mostly grey but pinkish on its neck. Dunno what sort of crane it was and my bird book is somewhere in the mess that is my house. But it was nice to watch from my car whatever its name was.

With Kerrie away I have been very, very busy at work. Tonight when I finished, I sent an email to Don. I had sent an email out from work but asked people not to reply to that address but to Don tonight I said that didn’t apply to him! I am dying to know what has happened to your package for me! I asked him if it was OK with him to have "the family" send it to him and then have him send it to my new address. And I also told him that I would like to talk to him since I have so many unanswered questions. I guess he’s probably "out bush" by now but he’ll get it eventually. I just have to try to be patient.

I tell ya’, Keith, it is just so amazing how I feel. I get the most steady, peaceful, ‘right’ feeling from you when I look at your pictures. On the wall above my ‘puter at work I have my favourite ‘cub’ photo, the Kitimat salmon photo, the pic of you with Rowdy, the one with Simba in the Dodge and that most excellent photo that you took of Kisa (why does her fur look so dark in that photo and not in the others?). Oh, yeah, I have the Abbotsford/Kisa one on my desktop like I said before. When I look at them, it just settles me right down. Ya’, I do feel like weeping sometimes but mostly I just get this overwhelming sense of peace.

"Stages" is playing: "Tell me it's for real and let me know why does lovin' have to come and go?". I’ll never, ever understand why you had to go, my Grizz, never. Ya’, I am mindful of the fact that if you hadn’t have been sick we probably would not have met but I guess that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we loved each other and we were good to each other and someday, someday, we’ll meet again. Sometimes when I get upset I remind myself that you chose to spend your time with me in the evenings before you went to bed almost every single night from about the middle of January up until almost before you died. Times when you couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night you’d get up and ‘phone or message me and if there’s anybody out there that’s uncomfortable with that, it isn’t me that you should be blaming (and it’s not Keith, either). :-P

In spite of all this crap, I’m missing you always –

- Tiger Woman

Wednesday night, 4 May 2005 [11:00 p.m.]:

Hi there, my Grizz. Today was one of ‘your’ days from the very beginning. I got about a block and a half from the house this morning and there was this outboard motor on a stand that somebody had for sale. It just went on from there – cockatoos, lorikeets, etc.

I got a coat and a jacket today ‘cuz I’ll need something when I come to Canada in November and it feels like this winter is going to be a bit cooler than usual.

I sent an email to a few friends today from work to let them know that I’m still not on the internet. Tomorrow I am going to write Don from work in case he has replied about the package and I haven’t gotten his email. By now he’s probably back out working on site but he’ll get it when he gets back.
Went to another scrapbook class tonight and started working on two pages for a girlfriend (who I shall not name because I want it to be a surprise). I think it will be a nice surprise for her. And it will help me to build my repertoire of techniques to use in your and Alison’s albums. The women at the scrapbooking place that I was at tonight were really nice and the owner, Leanne, even remembered me talking about your album and got in some special papers for me. You know I don’t have a colour printer, right? Well, Woolworths will do 5 x 7 colour prints from CD for only 20c each! I wish I had your advice about what to do about my ‘puter and printer. Hell, I wish I had you advice on every aspect of my life, dude! I sure as hell as miss you, that’s for sure.

But I didn’t cry at all today, thank God, not for you and not for Dennis, either (the lecturer from Uni). But, as usual, I thought of you constantly. Told Steve, the next door neighbour, about my tatt and he thinks that it sounds cool. But you’ll have to wait until it’s a done deal to find out and I’ll post a photo of it to my blog.

One of the radiation therapy lecturers cornered me today (he’s the guy that thought that I was going out on job interviews). First, he said that I’ve been looking great lately (I felt like telling him "If you think this looks great, you should see the underwear that I’ve got on!" but of course I didn’t - LOL!). Then he said that he thought that I should go out to Westmead Hospital and see the chief therapist and have a talk about doing my internship there. I asked about Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (my favourite) and he said that I should talk to Peter there. Peter knows me well since I did one clinical rotation there and volunteered over two Christmas periods. Oh, and I did a research project there. John reckons it’s all about me being afraid to move outside my Uni comfort zone and that I really should do the internship and get qualified. He wondered how long I’d be happy to do the type of jobs that I’m doing now (administrative). I told him that I wanted to start my Masters’ in two years (well, more like one and a half now!) time but he sort of assumed (everybody does) that it will be in radiation therapy. And that’s not what I promised you! If I do research in radiation therapy it’s going to be along the lines of treatment regimes – not working on a cure. It’s about what you do when the patient already has the disease, not about preventing the patient from getting the disease. Within the month I will have to start getting info together on PV and research that is going on now. It really is going to take a while to frame the research question – in fact, that and writing the ethics application is about the hardest part of the research! Anyway, honey, I haven’t lost sight of what you wanted, I just have to sort it all out. (Whenever I think about this sort of stuff, I always wish we had talked more about your disease. You were OK about it for awhile but than you got to a point that you just refused to talk about it. Oh, well, honey, if you didn’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I want whatever you want, OK?)

OK, my Grizz, it’s almost midnight and it’s getting cold in here. Time to start getting ready for bed. Can you feel all the love that I have in my heart for you? I hope that you can and that it gives you the beautiful warm feeling that I get from you. BTW: I could only see Venus tonight, all the stars were hidden by cloud.

Loving you, missing you, needing you, wanting you…

- Susan

Tuesday night, 3 May 2005 [8:45 p.m.]:

Honey, it’s me and I’m a mess. I just keep weeping and I miss you so. Emotionally, I’m back where I was when it first got to me. You know, I can hardly believe that the morning after I got Don’s email saying you had died five days before I was out at the University and giving a presentation to the postgraduate sonography students. Was I nuts then or now?

I think that I must be depressed or something – one of the lecturers in the Faculty passed away on Monday and I keep getting weepy about him. Dennis wasn’t one of those ‘loved by everybody’ types, he was just too much of an intellectual for that [in spite of wearing a pair of braces (suspenders in North America) and jeans]. He lectured me in sociology and I learned heaps from him about the state of medical services to Aboriginal people. He had a wonderful smile that lit up his face. If there is a funeral service, I will try to go. Or maybe a better thing to send a card to his widow a couple of months from now – they say when people are grieving they get a lot of attention at the beginning and then nothing. I’m getting the ‘say nothing’ treatment from some people right from the beginning because you were ‘just’ a friend and a friend for not very long at that so I guess that I don’t ‘deserve’ condolences.

That’s the problem – you are the nicest man that I ever met in my whole life and I didn’t get to know you for very long. It sucks, it absolutely sucks. Not only are you the nicest man but you treated me the best and you were into so many things and so much fun. Honey, I can’t not miss you, OK? I’m sorry, but you were just too good for me. So I grieve, grieve, grieve for you. Constantly lately, it’s awful.

What is it with cancer patients? I have been on hospital clinicals since 1992 and they have always been the nicest, nicest people. In all that time I have only had one difficult patient and she was only difficult because she had a tracheostomy and it was very difficult to speak with her. But every one has had the nicest nature and been so pleasant to work with. And you, honey, are an absolute goddamned treasure – almost too good to be true. You’d say these things and they’d seem almost preposterous and they always turned out to be true. Here’s an example: you’d say, "I’m going to Paul’s ranch to ride my horse." (like you’ve got a horse, too, right…) and then I said to Don "Did Keith make it to Paul’s?" and straight away Don says "Yes, he rode on his horse, Sunny, for as long as he could". If I had any doubts (and I have to admit that at the beginning I did, it just seemed all too fantastic) they were always confirmed and I learned to accept whatever you said 100% and just hang on for the ride!

I especially miss you in the evening when we used to talk. That’s the hardest time for me. Blows me away that someone bought the house at 108 and is in it. Drives me insane wondering about your stuff and about the parcel you wanted sent to me.

I cannot stop crying and I hate it. I especially hate crying at work. I miss you and you don’t visit me. You, of all people, can see inside my heart – honey, please help me!

I honestly don’t know what to do. I try to walk tall at Uni and with my new clothes and all and I’m sure that there are people that don’t have a clue in the world that inside I am just wishing to die. I try thinking about the Promises that I made to you, I try thinking about the way that you asked me to honour you but it is so goddamned hard.

I’ve had disaster after disaster trying to send out and receive emails but I will have to email Don tomorrow from work or he will wind up being out on a remote site again and it will be another three weeks before I hear from him. I will lose it for sure if that is the case.

Honey, I have got to go. I have another class tomorrow night and I have to get some materials ready for it and I’ve been having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning so I don’t want to go to bed too late.

I know I’ve said, "Don’t worry about me" but I could use you help. I don’t want you to worry, honey, I want you to have a riot of a time like you deserve but just smile on me now and again, OK? I miss you so…

- Susan

May 17, 2005

Monday night, 2 May 2005 [11:30 p.m.]:

Honey, it’s me again.

I dunno, I just had this overwhelming urge to tell you that I love you. I know I tell you a million times and I know that you know it, but I just had to say it again. I also sort of want to apologise for teasing you all the time – I know you can handle it and it doesn’t bother you ‘cuz you know I love you but I just wanted to let you know. When I tease you, I do it with love. (Just reminded me of what my Mother used to say when I was in grade school, "Susan, they wouldn’t tease you if they didn’t like you.")

God damned, I miss you. I’ve gone back to that wanting-to-die phase of my grieving where I just want to be with you so badly that I just wish something dreadful would happen. You know what they say – be careful of what you wish for, you just might get it.

Come be with me, honey, I need you right now. Tearfully yours –

- Susan

Monday night, 2 May 2005 [9:30 p.m.]:

Hi there, my honey.

Not the best day today, I’m afraid. I usually sleep like a log – I mean when I go to bed I just die. Not last night, I kept waking up, over and over. Then early this morning I had a strange dream. My niece, Maria, rang me to tell me that you were hitting on her daughter, Ashley, and had sent Ash your photo. The photo was taken in Japan (!) and you could see your aura in it. It was printed on metal and your aura looked a bit like the iridescence you get when oil floats on top of water. What do you suppose the dream means?

Anyway, maybe because I’m tired, I kept bursting into tears today. Sh*t, I miss you so much. Oh, honey. I am playing your playlist in iTunes right now – burst into tears when "All I Know" came on.

I am also having a technological breakdown. Went to Dan Blanton’s site today and the February stuff had been archived. Bugger – I will have to email him. Both cameras (a digital and a SLR Olympus) are playing up. The CD drive on this computer has crashed and the ‘puter doesn’t recognise that it’s there. No internet. Tried to download the current iTunes and iPod s/w today onto floppy and it wouldn’t fit. Cut and pasted my most important email addresses onto a floppy and twice the computer at work wouldn’t read it (on two different floppies). So I took it over to the Uni computer lab and it couldn’t read it either. [I was trying to send out a generic email letting people know that I’m offline but I couldn’t even do that.] Look here, honey, get your big butt down here and give me a hand!!

Honey, "Rough Boy" is on and I’m tired and out of sorts so I think I better go. I’ll try again tomorrow to see if I can get to my Uni student account – I am dying to know if Don has written about your package which, as you guessed, still isn’t here. Also wondering if he’s visited the blog – I’m sure he’ll find lots of it really gaggy, lots he didn’t know, lots of funny bits and a few surprises.

I am sooo looking forward to the time when we can be together. For now I know you’ll find a billion things to keep you happy and active. Here’s a hug from me; send one back when you can. I love you.

- Susan

Sunday night, 1 May 2005 [7:30 p.m.]:

Hello, my Keith. I’m on early aren’t I! Just got in from hanging up some laundry – and there were only nine stars showing because of clouds – but I said "Hi" to you anyway.

Marla is already on her way back to Brisbane – we had a great day in the city today. I took the train in and met her at her hotel and we found a little place for brunch. We sat there and gabbed on for so long that we got asked to leave! We strolled around through Chinatown looking at all sorts of stuff and eventually wound up at Paddy’s Market which sells fruit and vegetables and heaps and heaps of market stalls selling souvenirs, t-shirts, watches, jewellery, footwear, sunglasses and all manner of other stuff. I bought some more craft supplies and then I got – you won’t believe it – a wig!!! It’s sort of feathery and short (just brushes my shoulders) with a fringe (bangs) and it’s a reddish colour with darker streaks. You would not believe how different I looked when I put it on! Marla couldn’t believe it and neither could the saleslady or I. After I got home I put it on and went out in the next door neighbour’s yard where Wozza was trimming the grass – and at first he didn’t recognise me! It was so funny. It was actually cheaper to buy than a haircut is and looks to be quite well made. LOL! (Ya’ gotta admit I’ve been having fun lately.) There were lots of Chinese stalls and I looked for our lunar signs but I only found one boar (pig) in the entire place (lots of tigers, tho. Funny, I didn’t see any roosters, either.). Well, when the time is right I will find them. Marla and I parted at the tramway and she went on to the Museum and I went up to Central Station. I went downstairs and bought a handbag I had seen in both black and a russet colour (matches my boots). Then I took off to the tattoo parlour to see if Zack was in. I wanted to show him the sketches I have and also to ask if I can pay like $100 a time until I have paid for the whole work to be done and then go in and get it done. I cannot imagine how I am going to sit still for so long – I will have to listen to music and if I listen to music I will have to sing and if I sing I will have to move, bro.

Honey, did you notice that it’s May already? Probably a good month for fly-fishing, I reckon. Jeez, honey, I really, really miss you. I want to talk to you on the ‘phone (and even more so, in person), I want to message you and I want emails and letters! I want you to give me permission to touch you. No, your Sage hat still is not here. It was supposed to be sent on the 18th of February and now it’s the 1st of May and it’s not here. I think it’s wicked, I really do (and not in the good sense). In a little over a week it will be three whole months since we spoke, I can hardly believe it. I know you don’t want me to cry like this but I don’t think you realise how special you are and how good you were to me (and still are). I love you and I miss you and sometimes the tears just come down. But you know sometimes, like today when I left the tattoo place and was walking up to the station I was just walking and I felt good and I knew I looked good and I had this smile on my face. Kind of a private smile and it was coming from thoughts of you being with me – you just felt like you were there with me, walking up the road kicking the autumn leaves aside. It was nice and the feeling just filled up inside of me. Sometimes I just know that you are with me – I don’t know if it’s me making it happen or if it’s you. Do you remember when you consciously sent me good wishes on my graduation day and when I emailed you about it you said that you had been sending warm wishes to me then. So when we’ve sent wishes and hugs back and forth from Australia to Canada and they’ve made it through, don’t you think the heaven-sent ones would make it through, too? So I choose to believe that when I feel as if you’re with me that’s you sending your love – or even yourself – from your faraway star.

Eight-thirty now and I’m definitely feeling a bit weepy. I think I’ll fold the laundry then maybe have some hot chocolate and then crawl into bed. Really feel like reading Clayton’s book right now but I don’t want to order it from Amazon and then wind up finding that you had sent it with the hat (oh, honey, I really, really hope that you did, that would be the sweetest thing and I am like sooo sorry that I said no to you. I can be a total idiot sometimes and shoot myself in the foot with awful regularity, I’m afraid.)

Well, honey, right now I really, really want to hold you. Usually when I felt that way it was to comfort you but right this minute I need it for me. Thanks for being with me again today – I love our times together so. I miss you so, honey. I am broken-hearted right now but I’m doin’ the "moving on" thing to the best of my ability and stubbornly refuse to "get over" you. Saw a thing at the markets, "If friends were flowers, I’d pick you". Honey, we were the best of friends and that means so much to me. Like how could I not miss you after the way we were together?

Got to tear myself away… Enjoy yourself, honey, and don’t worry, it’ll all get sorted out eventually. And when I make it up there I want you to wear that grey marle t-shirt** and you can show me the tiger babies and Rowdy (after I’ve met Clayton and your Pop and Dad) and I’ll trade you back the Sage hat for that purple Bare polar fleece fishing shirt of yours. No, wait, in Heaven we can have two Sage hats, OK?

‘night, sweetie –

- S.

**Yes, of course you can wear jeans and whatever with the t-shirt! How depraved do you think I am anyway – LOL!

May 15, 2005

Saturday night, 30 April 2005 [7:15 p.m.]:

Hi there, my own sweet Grizz. I’m on early tonight because I stayed up so late last night and I am really tired. Gonna be an early night tonight.

Stayed up working on the house since Marla was coming and I put up all my Balinese and Javanese shadow puppets on the wall above my bed – they look really nice. I have six from Bali and one from Java. The Javanese one is made from real cowhide and the sticks are made from turned cowhorn; I think it might be an antique one. There are three of Arjuna, one of Krishna, one of Hanuman and I don’t know the names of the other ones. I’ve been collecting folk art for awhile.

I picked up Marla in Auburn (she took the train out from the city) and we came back over to the house. She thought that it was really cute with its stained glass and fretwork on the verandah. I showed her my scrapbook stuff and we went through all your photos. She couldn’t believe the number of dead animals – LOL! Oh, and "boys toys", too. We both remarked on the complete lack of women in any of your shots – trust me, dude, if I was there, there would be no way you’d get off going fishing or whatever and not taking me some of the time. No, I wouldn’t have to go all the time and I wouldn’t go when you had your clients but I’d be damned if I let you make me stay at home and not go out and have some fun, too! As for your motorcycle, you’d have to take me out some of the time, you just would. :-P (P.S.: You are going to be sooo jealous when you see my tatt you’re going to run right out to St. Peter’s Tattoo Parlour and get one just like it.)

Anyway, Marla liked you a lot. (I absolutely cracked her up when I pointed out your fat fingers, funny lower lip and ear lobes and the fact that your hat is on crooked in the "cub" photo – you are so funny!) I got a bit weepy a couple of times but Marla was OK with that. When I got back from dropping Marla off at the station to go back to her hotel, I went through all your photos again and there were a couple that I had sort of forgotten and it was good to see them again.

While she was here, we went to Auburn’s Japanese Gardens and to the Bonsai Garden (Warwick used to work there as a volunteer). [I hope I remember to go to the Gardens when it’s cherry blossom time in the Spring.] Then we went to a Turkish restaurant and had a late lunch. Tomorrow I’m going to meet her in the city and we are going to find a place to have brunch. We’re going to follow brunch up with a visit to the Powerhouse Museum. She said that they have some sort of Greco-Roman artwork on exhibit. Too bad it wasn’t a couple of months ago – they had a "Lord of the Rings" exhibit that had lots of props and stuff about making the movie trilogy. We never did talk about art or museums or those sorts of thing but you were never one to write stuff off without first having given them a go.

I love you, honey, I love everything about you. Ya’, you’re an ornery devil but I love you in spite of it and I can’t imagine anything that you could do that would make me love you any less. I am so glad that you chose me, of all bloody people, to share your last days with. You know I don’t regret a second that we spent together and, what is more, I don’t have any regrets along the lines of "I should have done this" or "I shouldn’t have done that". Except for that bloody Sleeman’s ale there isn’t a damned thing more I could have done for you that I didn’t do. The only thing is, and I bet you’re aware of it now, I should have been with you at the very end in case you needed someone and regretted being alone. You could have sent me out of the room if you wanted, you could have had me hold you tight, you could have had me help you to meet Clayton – I would have done what ever you wanted and I promise, promise, promise that I would not have held you back or pleaded with you or tried to keep you with me. It’s hard but I have the strength to do it and I’m probably the only one that could have. Honey, you should have trusted me a little more and not wanted to be so ‘in charge’ at the end. But it’s done and finished and only you know the very last page of your story.

I’ve just been sitting here staring at the monitor thinking about your last night, about Don and Ken, about your hat and Colleen and Alison and about your purple Bare fishing shirt that I love. Also about something else that I hinted at once before but I just cannot write here. It’s just a suspicion that I have (and you know how all of my suspicions that I had about you turned out to be true, much to your surprise) and I want to know but I just don’t know how I can ask Don unless I ask him on the ‘phone. It’s just something that dawned on me a couple of weeks after you died and I would like to know if it happened that way. I’m a big girl and you can tell me (or let me know) and I am not going to love you any less or grieve any more over it. Sometimes, you just "gotta do what ya’ gotta do". Keith, please understand that I love you unconditionally – I have not set up any boundaries or fences that you need to stay within. I wouldn’t let you mistreat me, but I know that you are the kind of man that never would so I have no need to set limits on you. I am getting the distinct impression that’s what "the family" has done to you – they have tried to box you in and parcel out your life and you’re just not the sort of man to live within those sort of limitations.

If you hadn’t wound up alone at 108, I would have never met you. You had tons of friends, so it wasn’t like you needed me. Our regard for each other just grew and grew and I think you appreciated the sexual tension from having a female friend. So you wound up with a loving, giving Tiger Woman who was there 24/7 for you and who accepted you completely and without reservation and who rejoiced in you and with you. Well, I love you and celebrate you now and I always will do. You are such a part of me and you have helped Warwick and I so much. I am looking forward to the time that we can be together – we have so many years of stories to tell each other! (When I make Alison’s scrapbook, I am going to leave some blank pages so that she can put in photos and mementos from grade school and your high school and university graduations and your wedding and baby photos of your daughter and Craig. I’ve even gotten some embroidery canvas so I can do a small cross-stitch with elements of the "coffee" embroidery that she made for you. I hope by the time I have finished it and she receives it that she’ll be in a more receptive mood to things from Australia!)

OK, honey, I’ve got to go. Enjoy yourself and be good and if you can’t be good… then have a rip-roaring good time being bad! Loving you and missing you heaps.

- your very own Tiger Woman

P.S.: (10:00 p.m.) I just had this sort of a dream. I was in the spare room up at 108 – I was cleaning my boots because we had been out in the snow earlier in the day and I had gotten salt stains on them. I was sitting in a chair and the door was open. You came walking into the room – you didn’t knock, you didn’t say, "May I come in?" – you just walked straight in. You walked right up to me and reached out your right hand and laid it on the side of my neck. We looked into each other’s eyes and right then we knew the answers to all the questions we had. I reached up and let my hair down. I cried later when I woke up and you kissed me on the nape of my neck. I was sad, but at the same time I felt a profound sense of peace. It’s funny but you have this way of taking charge that I actually enjoy – with a lot of men in my life I have been the boss and it’s really interesting the way you make me feel sometimes, the decisions I let you make and the way I defer to you – it’s something that I have never really experienced before.

Friday night, 29 April 2005 [11:45 p.m.]:

Hey, ya’, it’s your Susan again.

Today was crazy at work and ‘cuz I was so busy, the day just flew. Saw from the tearoom window four big cockatoos this afternoon and several crows and magpies trying to scare them off with no luck. My immediate supervisor, Kerrie, is off on a South Pacific cruise so I am trying to do her job as well as mine. Popped in to see the Head of School, Jenny, to tell her about the seminar and thank her for letting me go and she said that she wanted to talk to me. There is a possible permanent position opening up in about six or eight weeks time acting as clinical coordinator for the undergraduate students. Permanent! I’d get sick leave and holiday (vacation) pay and after the probationary period they’d have a devil of a time trying to fire me (right now I think they only have to give me an hour’s notice). Oh, yeah, it’s full-time!! ;-) So it’s all good and I’d be kept happily busy until I start my Master’s.

Nice to meet you in the stars again tonight, honey, BTW.

More computer probs – was getting ready to rip an Alanis Morrisette CD when the CD just died. It acts like it’s not getting power but I have checked all the connections and they’re fine (I keep the side off the ‘puter for just such an event) and I tried restarting. Can’t get the disk to eject or play or be recognised or anything. Actually, I guess I should try it using Windows Media Player instead of just iTunes. No, just tried it and it doesn’t work either. Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you that I am having probs with my iPod!!! And without the internet, I can’t download the latest iTunes and iPod software for it.

Also, last night I copied into Word a number of email contacts addresses meaning to send out an email to everyone from work letting them know that I am without the internet. Guess what – the damn disk that I copied them on to couldn’t be read. I am not having a good week technologically! ;-(

Warwick is about to get notice to pack up and move to his Dad’s or somewhere other than here. He does almost nothing around here, is a total grump and I have to pay for everything – he is not contributing at all. Damn it Keith, you’re not around to have one of your talks with him and I know he listened to you and respected you. Such a shame he never got to go hunting or fishing with you – he loves riding a quadie and if you still had one, he would have walked to 108 just to ride it. Anyway, I have no intention of letting the situation with him carry on, it is just too demanding on me and, after all, he’s stopped going to Uni. Marla’s coming tomorrow and I asked him to help tidy the house and he got hardly anything done. Anyway, it’s after midnight now and I’ve got a bit more work to do before I can get in to bed. At least the place isn’t looking as bad as it did (but there is still a lot to be done).

In case it’s slipped your mind, I just want to remind you that I love you. You are stuck with me you big, lovable dude (and I hope you enjoyed the lingerie parade – you didn’t reckon on me being so naughty, did you? – LOL!!) Lap it up, honey, and enjoy every single second to the max, as I know you can. Now I know you’re not Catholic so there’s some things in Heaven that you probably need to know about. There’s this saint, St. Jude. He’s called "The Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes". Now here’s what you do – go find him and say: "St. Jude, Susan from Michigan is a good Catholic and she told me to specifically ask for you. Here’s what I need – about 1,200 cases of Sleeman’s Honey Pale Ale (that should last me until summer starts, then I’ll order again)." And, hey presto, Grizz, you’ll be set!

So have a great time doing what you want and bask in the love that just radiates out from me. I’ll see you tomorrow.…

- Susan

P.S.: Something I didn’t tell you – while I have the "cub" picture in my diary, on my bedside table and on the wall at work, I have something else open all the time on my computer and you’re probably not going to be too thrilled about it. You know that picture that was taken on the 30th of January in front of Alison’s house with Kisa? You’re wearing that "Action Animals" vest in it. I know you want me to think of you like you were in June and not in January. You’re right, you don’t look so good in it, especially around the eyes. But I love that photo anyway, honey, and it always makes me want to stroke your face and hold your cheek in my hand. It’s blown way up in Paint Shop until you can see the pixels and I know you’d rather I had another photo up but I find this one very endearing. You had less than two weeks to live when that was taken and it’s the last photo I have of you. You sent me other pictures, but that’s my last one of you so I treasure it. Honey, just understand, I just love you as you are, OK? You don’t have to be something or do something or look like something – just be yourself. You are someone very, very special and you mean the world to me just as you are – no demands, no expectations, no boundaries, no limits. Enough of this! Off you go and find St. Jude!