My Dearest Alex, 

Today marks 11 months of your passing, and it still feels like it happened yesterday. I miss you greatly my love, but I wanted to write this love letter to thank you for all that you gave me. So I want to start by saying thank you for loving me unconditionally every day of your life. From the moment we met, to the last words you said to me, I always felt just pure love from you. Thank you for that.

Thank you for always making me feel so special, from writing me little notes to celebrating all of my accomplishments. You made me feel beautiful, even when I didn’t feel my best. Thank you for all the times you brought me flowers, made me chicken soup when I was sick, and for picking out the best shows to watch. 

I thank you for holding me up when I felt I couldn’t stand. Thank you for wiping my tears and holding me through all of the peaks and valleys we walked through in the years we were together. Thank you for all the wonderful dinners, and the special things you did for me. Thank you for bringing so much laughter into my life, and for helping see life more beautiful.

I enjoyed all of our conversations whether deep or not and all of the games we played. I miss our late-night snacks, just laying in bed, and watching reruns of Seinfeld. We didn’t get to watch them all like we said we would. But I will finish watching them all for you.

The first Thanksgiving Mike and I spent together in 1999, we went out for Indian food. We thought it would be a lark to be totally untraditional, and we did that together for a few years until we moved to Hawaii. Once we got here we started hosting the holiday ourselves with various groups of family and friends over the years. I have a lot of fond memories of it all. But in truth, Mike and I together were never super big on any of the holiday kaboozle. We could take it or leave it…and some years, we did leave it, preferring instead to take it easy. Those were good years too.

Honestly I can’t believe another year has gone by. Today is my second Thanksgiving without him. If not for the hoo-hah surrounding the holiday season, on TV, in stores, I probably could just very well ignore the whole thing. Last year, I did. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, as much as I could avoid it, I did not mark either Thanksgiving or Christmas really at all. I couldn’t bear any sort of special meal or event with that empty chair staring at me.

week has been a whirlwind for me. I met a fellow artist who, upon seeing my photographic series on grief, asked to write this feature about it for a creative blog he writes for. That one blog post at this point has led to around 6 other blogs contacting me to share my story and the project… which has resulted in hundreds of people sharing the project via Facebook and Twitter. It has been certainly one of the most memorable and moving weeks of slogging through the past two years since my fiancé died.

To catch you up, this is a year-long self portrait series I have been doing since February called "Still, Life". Each weekly image - which I share on my blog - explores and expresses the emotional and psychological journey of living on after the death of someone you love. It touches on aspects like desperation and isolation, hopelessness and hope, fear and trust. It has been a grueling and often frustrating project. I've wanted to quit MANY times. I've cursed enough over it to make a sailor blush. I've had total emotional breakdowns over it. But, I've needed it project to survive. It's given me something to put myself into each day… like being able to climb into a boat on this stormy sea of grief. Still in the storm, but with something to hold me and help give me some small bit of direction.

So here I am this week, reading kind words written by other people about this work I've poured myself into for the past nine months. A project that could have never come out of me had he not died. It is so bittersweet - but my God, it's beautiful. The first two years were deeply survival. But these first 5 months of the third year since he died, it feels like he lives on in every step forward I take. The bitter is beginning to fall away, and leaving more and more sweetness over time.

...... is not something I have felt a lot these past almost-6 years.
I mean, I've felt it for a few things, like my children, my family and friends who were there for me when I really needed them.

But it was beyond difficult to feel thankful, while at the same time not believing that Jim was dead.

But this year ...... this year is different.
These are the things I'm thankful for, even in the midst of missing him every single day:

My life is much different from many of my loved ones.


I find myself traveling 1/3 of the year.


I happily sleep with two (furry) men each night I'm home.


No one gets on my back for the dishes sitting in the sink a bit too long or the dirty clothes on the floor.