My sweetheart Laura died ten years ago today, on January 16, 2014. To my heart, it feels like yesterday. The heart doesn’t know time, only feelings.

I held a vigil last night. As the clock approached 2 am (the time of Laura’s passing), I danced to our favorite songs, Move Closer and Wild is the Wind (the Cat Power version), as snow poured softly from the sky.

If you’ve read this blog, you’ll know Laura is still present to me in her own unique way. On Friday I dreamt I spent the night walking with my mother and at the end there was Laura ready to give me the best snog ever. She was (and still is) a great kisser!

Eight weeks after we met, I wrote this – She is standing on the doorstep, rain dripping off her nose, looking like a wet seal. And there at last is the smile that I have waited two months for.  The one in the picture.  The one all her friends talk about.  It is like a kid’s drawing, a big swooping line from ear to ear. And those bright eyes filled with joy and mischief.  She has snatched 20 minutes out of her workday, caught a taxi three miles across Manhattan, without warning me, all in hopes of a kiss. 

We’ve been together for 13 years now. Three years while she was alive and now ten in this beautiful, intuited, non-corporeal way. Her ongoing presence has transformed my life and my understanding of who we are and what our purpose is here. I feel so blessed to know her and to be the recipient of this extraordinary gift.  She was – and is – the most playful, silly, big hearted, lovely person I know.