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As I sip the Highlander Grog (EL's favorite coffee from a roaster in her home town) made with beans she ground herself from a cup she bought me "just because" with damp cheeks from the streams of tears drying in the cool air of my office, I am amazed that I am still alive. Surely I would have died from this pain by now. Not to sound like a broken record, but I don't remember falling asleep... just the hurt. I woke up this morning and had to get EL's keys to our house out of her purse (still in the evidence bag) for my mother. It all seems so surreal. How can life be this cruel? I had charged her phones and laptop since I brought everything home. I booted her laptop while I was getting ready for work. I found some files she had been working for her job on her desktop that I will forward to her ex-employer. I opened the directory tree and just snooped around. I found some notes to herself, poetry she'd written, photos of Henry, some projects she was working on, and the two of us (filed under "family"). The last two documents she'd saved the afternoon of the second (the night of her death) were her time sheet and a Word doc entitled "love songs". Faith Hill and Tim McGraw's "Let's Make Love" was the first entry.

"Baby I've been drifting away
And dreaming all day
Of holding you, touching you,
The only thing I wanna do is be with you
As close to you as I can be
Let's make love All night long Until our strength is gone Hold on tight Just let go I want to feel you in my soul Until the sun comes up Let's make love"

I remember our wedding day and all the beautiful songs she had selected for the event. This song, which I'd never heard before today, reminded me of that... and how sweet and wonderful she was to me. I have been crying all morning. At the house, on the way to work, at my office... I can't stop. There is no knife that can cut this deep. The very deepest part of my being, where the heart meets the soul, is in torturous pain. I am so sorry Erin... so so sorry. Silence is the only thing I have to describe where I am without you.


The Secret Many truths float through life never finding validation in breath, but they're true just the same and no closer to death. Ageless and absolute are but a few, But one stands out that I'd like to share with you. Behind each man that knows success and prosperity, is the love of a woman given freely and charitably. Whether a mother's son whose morals and actions tell true the love that she gave him as he stumbled and grew, or a passing acquaintance, a lover, or wife, whose love keeps him warm amongst cold men and cold nights these men that find the strength to persevere when most fail and champion the mightiest when they seem weaker and frail are the men that know greatness beyond me and perhaps you these are the men who awaken to woman's "I love you."