LOVE LETTER FROM THE DEAD

I hope you don't find this entry morbid but death's hanging on my head...

A dear uncle died this week. And I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife (was so moved that I even watched the film for the second time).

A letter to be opened in the event of my death

December 10, 2006

Dearest Clare,

If you are reading this, I am probably dead...

Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust. Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world that I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me and surrounded you, keep you, hold you.

Please, Clare. When I am dead. Stop waiting and be free. Of me -- put me deep inside you and then go out in the world and live. Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element.

After my mom died she ate my father up completely. She would have hated it. Every minute of his life since then has been marked by her absence, every action has lacked dimension because she is not there to measure against. And when I was young I didn't understand, but now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird. If I had to live on without you I know I could not do it. But I hope, I have this vision of you walking unencumbered, with your shining hair in the sun. I have not seen this with my eyes, but only with my imagination, that makes pictures, that always wanted to paint you, shining; but I hope that this vision will be true, anyway.

We will see each other again, Clare. Until then, live, fully, present in the world, which is so beautiful.

It's dark, now, and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.

Henry

-- excerpts of Henry's letter to Clare, "The Time Traveler's Wife"

Made me cry.