Taking Stock: A Tribute

Chance brought us together, in one of its happier moods. I'd never known anyone with your wit, your way of seeing things, your knowledge about things I've never experienced. It was at a good time, too: when it would have been easy for me to close the valves of my life, become the stoic sage manque. We found, as things blossomed, that we shared more than we thought we could, and that allowed us to develop a deep, sometimes wordless connection of mind and heart.

Time, space, and circumstance have done their work to intervene, make things complicated, but still: you have made my life infinitely richer, and you have reminded me (mercifully) to live--to laugh--to be better than I am.

I have been truly close to only a very few people (blame it on my personality, my upbringing, whatever), and I've got some pretty severe hang-ups, but I thank the Heavens for you.