Sitting here alone in my bed, my mind wandering and I’m left wondering what the hell just happened? She was right here next to me - her head was on my chest and my fingers navigating softly on her scalp. I was without a care as I felt the natural texture of her hair brushing softly on my chin. To say I can still smell her would be cutting it thin, but you have to understand the state that I’m in. It seems like it was just last night that everything was going so well, even the most perfect stranger looking at us could tell that we were in love. We enjoyed a candle-light dinner in the gazebo with the cool late spring evening breeze gently caressing our lightly dressed bodies. We sat there and enjoyed her brilliant cooking, and I spent the rest of the evening just looking, just watching, just gazing aimlessly into her amazing eyes and thinking of all the things I wanted to do to her.

From there we went inside the house and lay down on the floor, listened to some Barbara Johnson & Bessie Smith, while we had apple pie for dessert and played a game of chess. Have you ever felt like you were blessed? That’s me, that’s how I felt whenever I was with her. With all my hang-ups, my insecurities, my fears, my imperfections she looked at me and I felt wanted. I felt huggable, felt touchable & felt lovable. After the game of chess she led me upstairs to our room where we talked the night away, she told me about her fears, dreams and ambitions and I told her about mine as I gently massaged all her tension away. She sang some Jill Scott to me and remixed it with Anita Baker; and at that moment I just had to thank my maker for taking time to make her for me. You ever feel like you wanted a moment to last forever? Ever wish that you could take a feeling and just put it in a bottle so that every once in a while you could go back to that bottle, open it and re-live that moment? That’s what our 21^st anniversary felt like. Kodak® couldn’t capture the brilliance of that moment. Imax® couldn’t produce anything to make you feel it the way I did. But as any other moment, you live it and it goes. Today would have been our 22^nd – I had looked forward to it being better than last year, I woke up to an empty bed, and it feels weird. It’s been 2 months since breast cancer took her away, and every morning feels like the mourning after.