Letter to Andrea
I think about you sometimes.
Not in the way people assume.
Just in the way a memory returns when the morning is slow.
I remember the mornings your smile greeted me.
The way you looked at people.
Present. Like the moment itself mattered.
Being around you felt warm.
Like waking up surrounded by a litter of golden retriever puppies.
The kind of warmth that makes you laugh before the day even begins.
Your femininity had a softness to it.
Not fragile.
Effortless.
Like a writer’s pen moving across a page with ease.
You appeared in my life during one of its darker chapters.
At the time I didn’t fully understand how much that presence mattered.
My wife is now gone.
I miss her.
And everything she made beautifully ordinary.
These days I spend a lot of time wrestling with my demons.
Most days we fight.
On other days we sit across from each other and talk.
Sometimes we even laugh.
They never leave.
But they never win either.
I’ve learned something from those conversations.
Happiness is an inside job.
And sometimes another person reminds you of that.
I often wonder how many lives you’ve warmed along the way.
How many people carry the memory of you like sunlight on a cold morning.
I suspect there are many.
For me you were a small reminder of something simple.
That even the longest winters end.