Circles ...

San Diego, March 2009

This week a year ago we sat in San Diego with your feet up piled on cushions trying to get rid of that horrible swelling. A year later I sit in Caracas my feet up trying to get the blood circulating. It’s funny how things go round, eh chica?!

You were sick but there was still so much fun and peace. Days of border crossings, quorn, Gavin and Stacey, hanging at the IV hotel, our daily Venezuelan choccie treat, playing the game that it was totally normal to puke beetroot juice all over Wholefoods car park… hurray for Jayne’s burger!! And hurray to our final adventure … in this world at least. Do you remember counting all the countries you had been to - was it 34 in total? More places than years on the planet. You really are pretty damn cool! This week I eat our beetroot salad creation and baked beans on toast with abandon in your honor. I hope you don’t mind but I am leaving out the quorn.. !

I will always be in awe of you Mi but at that time even more so. You looked beautiful and there were still so many smiles. You promised me so many good things would be coming. You said with a big grin you would take care of it all. And here I am a year later full to the brim with a baby boy who is just about ready to come out and give the world a go himself… I knew you were good Mi but that good!! He is due to join us next weekend almost a year to the day that we hugged goodbyes in San Diego train station. I like the timing. A full circle of hellos and goodbyes… such sadness and such happiness, all going round and round.

So here is to my next adventure mi amor. I wish more than ever you could be here for more. I still can’t bear to think of the world without you in it so I don’t and I see you everywhere. Thank you for bringing such beauty into my life, stay close and keep spreading the joy for us all. Te quiero. XXXXXXXXX

Thinkin' in the Rain.

I'm missing you a whole lot on this rainy, stay-indoors-in-our-pajamas sort of day. The skyline is a foggy blur. I can't even make out whether Lady Empire has lit up for the night yet or not. Harrumph. I wish you were here. We could lie in bed, look out the window, and take our best guesses at what colors she'd be when the fog lifted and we could see her—and at which obscure holiday the colors where honoring. "Aha—it's International Corporate Philanthropy Day!"

The week started off sunny, as if spring were here already. On days like those, you and I would be up and out of 7A early in the morning, walking to Gimme! Coffee on Mott Street for a fuck-off cappuccino. Or two. Or three. On the way there, you'd take pictures—our shadows on the sidewalk, dimensions exaggerated in the early-morning sunlight. You'd also shoot abandoned bicycles, or maybe some window reflecting our faces with the city traffic passing behind us. We'd see interesting-looking shops we'd never noticed before, and talk about how we'd have to remember to go back and explore them when they were open.

But, like I said, today has not been one of those days. It was raining when I woke up, and it's raining still in the early evening. I mostly did stay indoors, in my pajamas. I watched a movie—Examined Life. It looks at philosophy from the points of view of eight modern-day thinkers, including Peter Singer, Avital Ronell, and Cornel West. This would have been an interesting movie to watch together, nestled on the sofa, with a chicken roasting in the oven. My favorite thinker of the bunch is West—because he relates philosophy to blues and jazz music, and because he talks about "the raw, funky, stanky stuff off life." Who would you have found the most thought-provoking, or entertaining?

Love, love, love,
~Adam

Hey You,

Its coming up to that time of year last year when everything took a turn for the worse..... it was a scary and horrible time for you and Adam and your family. I remember with sadness those few calls we had that were so so so sad. But in between it all you still managed to text and email with snippets of positivity and sometimes with outright trippy nonsense - ah morphine eh!

I'm thinking of you all the time and can't believe how quickly 2009 became 2010 and the world is not nearly as interesting, funny, stimulating or sunny in 2010 cause you aren't in it. But you are of it...... and you always reminded us of that, you so embraced life and loved it that I am inspired by your example forever guapa.

I thought I'd post the picture you sent us all from your skiing holiday in Idaho that so made us laugh..... love you guapa, in the words of Buzz Lightyear "to infinity and beyond!" xxxKir