Today would have been Laura’s 61st birthday.  She died nearly 2 years ago.  Our spiritual honeymoon is over. Gone are the fireworks of the early days after she passed.  She no longer woos me by flashing the lights, spontaneously playing our favorite songs on our computers, making objects jump off the shelves or bang together. In the early days, it was a bit like living in the house of the paranormal.  At times I doubted my own sanity, especially when I saw a streak of pink light appear on several photographs and a column of light at the end of the living room.

Now we’ve mellowed into the spiritual equivalent of old marrieds. Laura is a daily comforting presence. I still wake up feeling she has visited in the night; my arms and legs entwined as if she has just slipped away. She leaves little gifts to delight me, like the love heart shape on the kitchen counter yesterday morning. And she is a fount of surprising and loving advice. I talk to her in my head and hear rapid fire answers. It sounds like my thoughts, but it’s Laura’s phrasing and it is just so quick, funny and surprising that I often laugh out loud. Probably it looks like madness if you see me chuckling to myself on the street.

Kindly friends and loved ones have said:  ‘You will have her in your heart forever’.  I do, but I also have so much more than that. Dear Laura, I love you to infinity and back. I always will.