The huge, black-painted, wrought iron gate stands open and I walk through it into a land of silence. The gentle, rolling hills before me are covered in fresh snow and dotted by the dark, pyramidal projections of pine trees. The air glistens and sparkles with snow-flakes carried on the light, cold breeze and the sky is that bright, clear blue that only comes in winter.
I pull my collar up snugly around my neck and crunch softly through the snow following the hint of a path that, I already know, leads over a low rise to my right and into a glade on the far side. As I walk, with my gaze held firmly before me, the sounds of the city fall away and I can hear only the sound of my own boots in the snow and the breeze softly sighing in the branches of the surrounding trees. The scene is so peaceful compared to the turmoil that churns inside of me.
No one has passed here since the last snow and my own is the only trail left in the snow. Here and there are the tiny impressions left by the squirrels, rabbits and birds that inhabit this tranquil place in the heart of the city. A winter bird calls, and I turn to see it flit away into the distance. Some pine cones have fallen heavily from the trees and stand out in dark, orange contrast against the purity of the snow. The headstones are dark and angular; some jutting up abruptly from the white landscape while others barely appear above the cold, winter covering.
I slip and slide down the path into the sheltered glade and make my way to the place that has consumed my consciousness for so long; the place where I brought you and watched as you were given back to the earth and so finally and terribly taken from my sight forever. In my hand, there is a bouquet of flowers. As I approach the place where you lie, I am already feeling the emotions rising up within me again.
The stone is low and snow covered, austere. I place the bouquet upright in the snow and begin to brush off the top of the stone with my gloved hands and clear a space in front of the stone. The snow is light and powdery, and the movements of my hands cause little eddies to form which sparkle in the bright, winter sun. They would cause me to smile at their gayly flickering reflected light if I were not here. With a space cleared away in front of the stone, I wipe away the wispy traces from the darkly polished face. My heavily gloved finger finds the letters and carefully follows them, forming the name which echoes dully and painfully in my mind. The years 1966 – 2001 ring out to me, taking me back to a terrible day six years ago. A single tear wells up in my right eye and trails warmly down my chilled cheek to the corner of my chin. I wipe it away with my hand and continue. I locate the opening of the vase in the ground and scoop some of the snow out of it along with previous vestiges of stems and leaves. I lift the bouquet from beside me in the snow and carefully remove the paper wrapping which I fold and put in the pocket of my jacket. The freshly cut stems push easily into the snow inside the vase and the bouquet falls open with a flash of colour against the dark background of your headstone.
The bouquet is very beautiful and seems to gleam; not only reflecting light but also giving of its vibrantly coloured spring-like presence. The flowers are yellow and blue and orange, and a single red rose rises above the others in the centre of the arrangement. These bright flowers, so out of place in this season, are my gift to you.
I stand and take a few steps back. I look around me at the brightly shaded glade and the trees and your place, the dark grey stone which marks you and the flowers which you will never see. I begin to sob, quietly. For myself.
I undo the zipper of my jacket and remove from the inside breast pocket the letter which I wrote for you. I carefully close the jacket again and wipe the tears from my eyes in order to read it. Once I begin to read, I had told myself, I could not stop and I could not turn away. Once begun, I had to follow through with it and say everything. I would read from start to finish and let you know everything I felt. And then it would be done. I unfold the dull white page with it’s dark blue writing and begin to read.
‘My love,
‘I love you so much and I miss you so much that it’s killing me inside. It’s been destroying me since you left and sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I have cried so much and so long that I thought the tears would run out, that I would just be left dry, but they don’t. I never knew that I could even feel so much pain and so much emptiness for so long. I never knew it was possible.’
‘I’ve lived in Hell for six years now. I don’t sleep. I can’t go a minute without thinking of you, of missing you, of wanting you here with me. It’s like I can’t breathe properly because I’m always trying to hold back the tears. When I think of you, I physically hurt inside and I want you so badly that it makes me feel sick.’
‘I can’t live that way anymore.’
‘Today, I’ve come to say goodbye to you.’

My breath catches and heaves in my chest with those last words and I begin to cry openly, freely and like a child. I force myself to continue and wipe my eyes again.

‘Do you remember that time on the pier, after we’d been dating for some months, when we were walking and talking together and then you turned around and grabbed my hand? I remember it like it was yesterday, except it wasn’t. I remember that you turned so quickly and stopped in front of me that you startled me. I remember that you looked up at me and said, ‘I think I love you.’ And I said, ‘I think I love you, too.’ And you kissed me and I can still feel that same kiss on my lips. Did you know that I was already so much in love with you that I would never be free again?’
‘I have so many memories of our time together but it’s hard for me to think of any one of them. I remember our first Christmas together and how you always made a fuss over my birthday so you could tease me about my age. I remember when we fought. I remember when we made love. I remember when you got upset at me and it just made me love you more.’
‘But those are the things that I have left of you now; our memories, the things that belonged to us. The things that I will keep with me forever until it is my time, and then they will go with me.’
‘But I am going to try to go on because if I didn’t then what would I be? So what I wanted to tell you is this: I’m probably not going to come back here much anymore, but that doesn’t mean anything. I still love you more than I can manage to hold inside me and I miss you so much and I will always miss you. But I want to try to live again, even though that means living without you and I hope that you’ll understand me.’
‘I love you so much.’
‘Goodbye, love, goodbye.’

My legs give out beneath me and I collapse, seated, into the snow. With my hands over my face, tears streaming and wetting my gloves and the collar of my jacket. I remain like that for some time until I realise that the snow is melting through my jeans. I am thoroughly chilled and shaking uncontrollably. The letter in my hand is now streaked with the wetness of my tears and some of the words have blurred. I refold it and place it in the vase with the flowers. I force my self to stop crying.
I kiss the end of my finger and press it to the cold stone, whispering. I turn and begin to walk away.
I am not very happy about this.
But I am hopeful that, in time, there will be some measure of happiness.
For me.
And for the memory of you.