I have dreamt of you again Lea. Well, at least I’ve had one more dream I can remember, for I don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt of you. This time I was with a friend (can’t remember who) in some sort of ruined ancient Roman village that reminded me Erculanum, in Italy. Initially I was in a high position and I looked down to the village. It was small, cornered by a rapid stream, and I begun walking down a stairway to reach the streets. When I finally did I found myself amidst a graveyard full of tiny gravestones. It was very ancient, covered with wild vegetation, and I felt like a giant in there, afraid of stepping something important. By that time I was alone in there, and the sound of the stream was louder.

Suddenly I turned my eyes to the part of the village closest to the water stream and, sitting over a ruined wall and facing the water, there you were, beautiful and alone, as I remember you from some of my cherished memories of Latvia! After an initial shock, and somehow knowing I was not allowed to talk to you or get any closer, I surrounded you and leaned myself, silent and once again with a friend, to a wall right in front of you. I remember having told the person I was with that you were still my love, that you looked just like I remember you and that I missed you as I never knew I could miss someone. I also felt a deep sadness not to be able to reach you and hold you.

You never looked at me during that dream. Instead, you lowered your eyes to the ground and all I could do was catching brief glimpses of your familiar face, as the breeze rearranged the hair hiding your expression from me. I then woke up. It was brief, it was sad, it was painful, but it was also the best I can expect from my life now.

It’s almost Christmas again. A year has almost passed since I went to Slovakia to spend Christmas with you. I don’t miss you more now Lea, but I miss you specially. I love you still, I'll love you always.

I keep loving and missing you day after day.

I’m losing sight in one of my eyes, the right one, to be specific. So, since it’s impossible to recover – so I’ve been told by the doctors – I’m left with a bad eye and a good one. Half blind? Half aware? Anyway, half, once again, as I’ve always felt. In the worst case scenario, I’ll completely lose my right sight and become half blind. But is it something new? Haven’t I always been half blind? Still, one can never be half blind! Either you're blind or you're not. That's why we have two eyes, two kidneys, two lungs... So we can afford to lose one and still not being considered handicaped (what a deal for social security!).

Half of me as always been extremely aware. Half has always strived to see things the way they really are. Half has always given up too soon by realising how impossible to climb were the mountains of prejudice and circumstance. Overwhelmed, half of me has always felt joy.

Meanwhile, there was this other half of me, the going-blind half of me, the cloudy, shady, fictional, unclear half. And this half fantasised, dreamt constantly, was at the origin of several emotions, conceived new and strange worlds. This half, deprived of clear definition, chose myth over science, chose fiction over reality. This was always, maybe, the half capable of feeling love.

Next Monday, September 28th, it will be a year since the first time we talked to each other. We’ve met the day before at Riga’s airport, but our first words to one another were on this day. I’m keeping track of all these little things because that’s part of what you left me with. That’s how blind my blind half is!

One year, and it hasn’t gone away my love. It is quiet now, it is silent, but it’s still here. Even now, after all this time, I rather go on loving you than anyone else. I don’t want to be rude, but even dead you’re so much more loveable than any living woman I know! Of course I may be loving you with my blind half, but be as it may, I’m looking at others with the sharp and aware part of me. Lea, you are irreplaceable. I know that's almost like saying "water, you're wet!" But as I’ve said, I may be losing sight in one of my eyes, but still I only have eyes for you.

These last days I’ve been missing you more than usual; I’ve been thinking things I’ve never thought before, little details, like how profoundly sad it is to die in the snow: death over white, over purity. Me, at least, whenever I conceptualized a place filled with snow, whenever I imagined a snowy village, pure, beautiful, clean, white, death had NEVER a role to play. White as Heaven, I always thought... But is there death in Heaven?

Red over snow, like blood in Paradise: The world has definitely changed. No more sacred places, I won’t hide again. You see, here is the going-blind half of me: In the absence of clarity, illusion! In the absence of rationality, dementia! Maybe religion will still have a word to say...

I just miss you and don’t know what to say and how to say it, and because I miss you I don’t know how I can stay for so long without writing something to you. I just talk and talk, with no-one to hear words that will be lost forever.

You loved me once Lea. You’ve changed me and I will love you forever. Today it’s my birthday, but what I celebrate in me is you.

I’ve been away Lea. Away from Portugal, away from my everyday life, away from Internet, but never away from you my love. Everywhere I go I miss you much. It doesn’t hurt anymore, I think, but your absence is felt every moment. I feel you so close sometimes.

Hello my love. It’s been a long time since last I wrote to you, I know. But this is not the only place in which I talk to you. Far from it, and you know that. The truth is that I miss you everyday. I won’t say I miss you more every day, how could I say that? These things can’t be measured. But I do miss you terribly, and every day it’s stranger, every day I feel more hollow and sorrowful. Every night I imagine you, I imagine I’m lying there with you, that I’m not alone and never will be... But then I feel all that silence around me, and I search you with an arm in bed hoping for a miracle that never comes. Then I tend to get exhausted and eventually give up and sleep. When I wake up, everyday, my first reaction is disappointment towards life itself.

 

I’m a mess. At first the pain was unimaginable, and tears were always finding their way out of me. Now it’s different. I don’t cry anymore. I can’t, although my eyes still feel tears coming very often. Now I just miss you too much and feel so lonely. Sometimes I just want to go on with things here, try to have a life, try to feed myself out of my grief and anger. Other times I just which I had in me the strength to give up, because no matter what I’ll never have you again in my arms. No matter what I do, never again I’ll be able to kiss you, to take your hair out of your eyes as I used to do... In a way, go on living feels like treating like trash our moments and our plans together.

 

I’m going away from Portugal for a time. I’ll try to give a rest to myself for some time. I’ll be away from telephones, from computers, from my family, from friends who don’t understand how I need to be alone and keep calling me; keep talking to me about things I don’t want to hear anymore; keep inviting me to things I don’t want to do anymore; keep believing I’m the same. Well Lea, I’m sure I'm not the same, that I will never be the same. You were so much more than a girlfriend to me! You were many of my infant dreams made flesh! I will never be the same, partly because I don’t want to go back being the person that I was, someone who did not knew you.

 

I don’t want to be alone. But every time I’m with someone I feel so tired. I feel I’m acting to be a mix of the person I am now and the person others met once, somewhere in the past. It just takes all the strength out of me, although, I repeat, I don’t want to be alone. I’m just so scared of life without you here.

 

So I’ll be away for some time my love. I’m not going to the mountains that you loved so much – how I wish I would… Everyday I dream with snow and our Christmas in Slovakia. I’m going to escape Portugal for a while, but to the north, and try just to stare at the sea. Come.

 

I love you and I miss you always.

I hope one day things can finally be stored again in their respective drawers and boxes, for right now I feel like they’re all scattered through the floor. I have no home without you Lea. There are no words for the way I miss you.

I’m still here my love. I still miss you much, though I’m feeling blank and empty. Some nights ago I dreamt a lot about you, although in the morning I couldn’t remember a thing. I woke in the middle of the night with you on my thoughts; with the absolute certainty that it was you who were there with me, in that dream of mine. Many times I think about writing you something in here, but everything I have to say feels so dull and hopeless… I want to give you good news, for once, but still haven’t any and maybe I feel kind of ashamed of that fact. Anyway, I’m still here, loving you, missing you, thinking and dreaming about you everyday. And as long as I’m here you’re alive too Lea. You’re always with me, and you’ll always be. 

Sometimes, not very frequently, I shut my eyes and imagine I’m close to you, just sitting in your tomb or standing next to it. I then face the little hill downwards in front of me, the houses of the small village, and behind them the narrow peaceful river. And on the other side of the river I can see the vast agricultural plains, with the mountains on the horizon. Behind me, only a few meters from your resting place, the hill where the cemetery stands transforms itself in a forest, and from those woods I can hear a variety of sounds, mainly from birds. If we stay very still and silent we can even see rabbits, foxes, or a deer. And in there, with my eyes shut, I can hear the sound of the tree leaves blown by the breeze. You’re in a pretty, unpretentious, and very peaceful place my love. I’m very glad I went to say goodbye to you there. This way I can always keep a visual memory of the place in which you will rest forever.

 

I keep dreaming with you Lea. Even today you were there, in one of my nightly fantasies, in terms I no longer remember exactly. I miss you so much! Everything’s lost its meaning and it’s getting lonelier here everyday. When in bed, before I fall asleep, sometimes I try to remember your expressions on precise moments. And eventually I succeed and try to hold that thought for some seconds more. I find it particularly hard, though.

 

I still have your phone number in my cell phone, as well as all the messages we’ve sent each other. In my photographic camera I still have the memory card full with all the photos I’ve taken when I was there with you last Christmas, with the exact dates of when they were taken. I’ve thought of what it would mean to me to erase them. I already have them on my computer and in another data device, but I think I will not be able to do it. I can’t erase them, not the photographs nor your cell number or our messages. Also the things you gave me in Christmas, like that beautiful book about the Slovak mountains you loved so much, plus the photo of you your mother gave me after you died, and some other little things, are all inside a plastic bag I keep over a table in the room where I sleep without opening it. I don’t seem to have the courage to open it. Better said, I have, but I know it will hurt too much! I dream of the day I’ll have my own house, or room, in which I can put your picture in a frame and keep it at sight forever, like you deserve.

 

Like I said, I miss you too much Lea. And so, I want to leave here this picture, of the church in Rézekne in front of which we kissed for the first time, sitting in the grass in that freezing night in Latvia. It’s just another fragment of our story that I can look upon if I ever loose my reasoning. Anyway, I still hope one day I can be just fine.

I love you. 

There are two of me, now more than ever. None of them is any good, though. One is lost and the other slowly loosing his mind. Remember stuff is all I do these days, and have been having really strange thoughts frequently. I need help but don’t know which way to turn. I want to move somewhere but am kind of frozen, as when I was a kid, afraid of spiders, wanting to run away but unable to move. Not a day goes by without me being hurt again my love, just like you were dying constantly, day after day, week after week, month after month. How I miss you! Sometimes that monstrous day when I received the awful news of your accident comes to my mind, and it’s like I’m there, back then, feeling all the pain and grief again. There’s no need of talking about the consequences of all this, you know how it goes. I’m almost dry, I don’t even know how I can still be feeling the way I do.

 

I need work so much! I need to wake up in the morning, having the day filled, interact with other people, earn my living, smile sometimes, and going to sleep tired each day. This is not intended to forget you, but to try and face it all without you, and you know that. I can’t stand anymore going to bed just dreaming of you and waking up some hours after, feeling empty, soured, more distant of everything each day. But even that looks like something well beyond my reach! There’s no work for me here, and I feel there’s really nothing I’m good at. I feel I’m part of nothing. All I am is what I feel for you Lea, but it is not enough. It can’t be! Where am I in the middle of my own world? Would you be proud of what I am? 

When I lost you Lea, after the initial shock, I told myself I would want to try and do something of my life, to make it worth living, and by doing so honoring your life too. I made it my wish, and my intent, to make you proud of me, of having loving me one day. But I guess that’s something I will not be able to do. I will never do nothing special, neither for myself nor to make you proud of me. I try but just can’t find a job, I have no money, am full of debts, and am feeling each day more detached from this world and from everybody. I feel scared sometimes, and others I just wish I had someone with me, to talk a little, to do me company, I’m not sure. I dream so much my love! I keep dreaming and dreaming, as if that’s the only thing left for me now. I have never felt so lonely in my life. I still want to try, but don’t know what to do anymore, feel scared sometimes, but mostly I feel so alone. Where’s my life? Well, at least you know what I feel for you. Only you know how I feel, how I miss you.

I still dream about you, my love. Whenever I go to bed you’re there with me, putting a smile on my face, and only then I feel safe, remembering all you gave me. Those are the moments when I remember all the little things I miss so much...

Since I was informed of your death, my little princess, I always sleep with a small candle by my side. The only pause I took in doing this was when I went back to Slovakia to your burial. Apart from that week I’ve been doing it every night, I don’t even know why. Once, when we met in Latvia, you told me you didn’t believe in God, during the visit to that big sanctuary near the Russian border. I was never a believer, too, and I told you that. Now it would seem even harder to believe in such an idea, in such a cruel and ruthless entity. But that’s not the point. I never believed in God when you were alive and it’s no now, that you’re gone from this world, that I will start. At the most I would believe God only to have someone to blame or hate, I think. 

 

Maybe I just keep that candle lit to take some of my own fears away. Or maybe it's even simpler and I do it just to see the little straw Christmas angel you gave me before I close my eyes each night, or whenever I open them while having trouble to sleep. Anyway, that’s something I do now I’ve never had the habit of doing. Little details, little rituals and little thoughts each day that trick me into the impression that things can still change. Maybe deep inside I just want to point you the way in the night towards me. Maybe that’s one fantasy I will never be capable of letting go Lea, because I still love you and miss you so much. Maybe I need to believe there's still time.

More life...

How can you love me now Lea? Days go by without easing things for me, without bringing me the peace of mind and hope I would need to go on. I miss you more and more, and each new day brings with it a stronger pain. When I wake up in the morning and realize a new day has risen I feel so depressed and sad, so anxious and lonely, that I wish I could again close my eyes and sink in a deep unending sleep. I miss your pretty face, I miss your smile and your gentle touch, I miss our conversations and kissing you, I miss we joking with each other and having you in my life, I miss you loving me, I miss writing you something and know there would be an answer, I miss our plans together and, most of all, I miss my beautiful friend! A friend I made, so late in life, so beautiful and loving, which left me so soon.

 

I’m yours. I love you.

Everything is wrong. I'm missing you more each day. I have never felt so lonely or lost my entire life. How can all be so wrong?

Remember this night in Vlkanová, this photograph? December 30^th, 2008, when you taught me how to ice-skate. Just you and me, the cold December night falling fast, that deserted lake and the sky so full of stars. I felt on my back so many times, over the rocky ice, but I actually did it! I was ice-skating with you my love! And when, dark already, you approached me in the middle of the lake to kiss me that was pure magic! That was romance! That was so much more than any place my imagination has taken me! Lea, that was the most beautiful moment of my life! I want to thank you, over and over again, for everything you gave me, for everything you made me feel. I have no words to tell you how I miss you...

The irony: Vlkanová, the small village where this night happened, where the most beautiful night I ever lived happened, is the place where you're now resting for all eternity... as if I needed some other reason to remember Vlkanová for the rest of my life...

As soon as I can, my love, I will return to Vlkanová again to give you some flowers. I don't know when I will be able to do it, for sometimes I don't even have enough to eat this days, but I will. I promise.

If I could just go back to January, to the day I saw you for the last time, I would say goodbye to you properly. We deserve to say goodbye again. You deserved hearing all I wanted to say but haven’t had the time. We all live our lives without knowing which moment will be the last. I died too Lea, do you know that? I was never much, I always hated my life, but now I’m really nothing. I still consider this world as the most beautiful miracle, but I’m so tired of it. All I want is to sleep. Not having you here is painful and much too awful for me to believe in a future and hope for something. I don’t believe anymore, and also I don’t want to believe. You made me believe again! You were sweetness, you were love itself, and I just wish I could say goodbye to you once more. The way I see it, I owe you! I love you Lea.

I’ve been acting like a jerk lately. I’ve tried to be good and life always took everything away from me. Maybe if I start acting like a jerk life finally leaves me alone… at least it should leave me alone. Just because I don’t write you as much as I did it doesn’t mean I’m forgetting you Lea. On the contrary, each day is worse. And I can imagine it will go on. I love you.

Sometimes, in nights I am missing you the most, I go to bed and just remember… And it’s amazing the amount of little details of moments we’ve lived I can still remember, like last night, when I don’t even remember having stood awake for long. I just thought of you, and although it still hurts it was refreshing also, and I immediately felt asleep and dreamt a lot. Unfortunately I don’t remember what I’ve dreamt about, but I can tell you that if I could always dream of you I would gladly sleep forever. I miss you so much Lea.

I’ve been feeling worse each day. Each day I’ve been feeling lonelier, you know that. I believe in nothing, I want nothing, although I keep dreaming. But my dreams disgust me now. I’m sorry for being so empty. I miss you Lea, so much...

It's Easter, but for me it's just another boring weekend. I just wish I could be with you, I've been feeling much too empty. I think about you constantly. I miss you to much Lea.

Easter is coming my love. Remember what we used to say about Slovak traditions? How I miss you…

This night I had a really strange dream of which I remember some parts. A young woman was dead, bloody, totally naked, beautiful, inside a cardboard box. I was leaning over that box with the young woman inside, and suddenly the room door opened and some children came in. One of them approached me and pinched me in the arm, and I did him the same like I was coming out from a trance. And all along another young woman was watching my movements, my reaction, controlling everything without a word… Was it you inside that box Lea? Was it you controlling? Was it you pinching my arm? Was it you at all? I miss you so much…

Every time I need to call someone and go through the contact list of my cell phone I see your number, and your associated picture there… And sometimes I stop only for some seconds, and imagine how good would be to call you right that moment and hear your sweet voice on the other side! I can’t erase your number Lea! There’s no point in either erase or maintain your number, so no action is needed in this regard. And that’s good, because I just couldn’t erase you from there. I rather hurt a little every time I go through that contact list; I rather miss you…

When we are young we dream about so many things we wanted from life, and then we grow up, and some of those things come true and others don’t. But we tend to old on to those happening, and if we happen to loose them along the way we feel like we’ve lost everything, because really there was never nothing we wanted more. You were always one of my dreams Lea. You’ll always be.

I think the first love is well over-rated! I think so much has been written throughout history about the first love precisely because it is the most identifiable one. Many more can happen, but the first will always be just one.

How could anyone ever write about the last love? How could one know it is the last? Of the last love we can only have a glimpse, in a moment of tragedy maybe… And sometimes, not knowing it is the last, we desire with all our blood and guts that it may in fact be, or that it had been the last, only to honor our companion, only to do her justice and, by so doing, try to tell her one last time how much loved she was.

My sweet Lea, I’m young still, and maybe you won’t be my last love… But I just want you to know that I would have loved it if you could have been... I miss you…

I feel empty. I just miss you Lea.

Bosk

Even in my sleep you seem not to leave my thoughts. This night you came again, although I remember only some fragments. I know it was you, though; there was something in the dream that belonged to you... Thank you!

I miss you Lea...

Today the hour changed! Summer hours are here and the days are getting warmer and longer. Spring is filling everything with flowers and their scents. How I wish I could be there to put more flowers on your grave. I know how you loved flowers and nature but, then again, you are amidst nature now, and the place you’re at is quite beautiful and peaceful, with all those birds around you…

I just wanted to send you a kiss today Lea, to tell you I’m still here, tell you I won’t forget. For the sake of what we had, which I will always keep.

Bodrú noc Lea, môj laska.

It’s Saturday, again, and I’m not with you Lea. Now time, for me, is like an endless lonely road away from you, and I have no choice but walk that road… I sense you behind, and in front of me there's nothing now. Fortunately nobody’s listening when I miss you. Fortunately nobody's here.

You were much too beautiful Lea; you were an amazing human being, and this world will miss you. It should have been me in your place.

I miss you Lea. I miss the love you gave me; I miss the love I was able to feel for you. You taught me what love was, only because of you I found out how wonderful that feeling is. Everyday I remind us together somewhere; at every moment some fragments of the past come to the surface and take control for some seconds.

My life is not a pretty sight to see, but at least I had those wonderful moments with you. You made it all worthwhile, and I’m not fantasizing. That night ice-skating on the frozen lake only with the stars above us… That will always be my idea of heaven! I would ice-skate with you on a frozen world for all eternity…

What happened between us was magic, and will always be the most precious memories of my life. I just hope I never lose my memory, and if I do I hope my conscience of the past goes along with it. Or, if my conscience abandons me, I hope some friend, who knows about this blog where I write to you, make me read it all and try to take me back to you! I want you still. I will want you always. I will go on loving Lea Lipková…

Please forgive me for being so imperfect...

Sometimes I think of you now and I imagine you as a little girl, alone, scared, lost… I imagine you happy when someone visits you, I imagine you smiling when someone talks to you, I imagine you curious when someone offers you something… But then I think of you being left alone again, in the dark, in the cold, with no-one to talk with you, with no-one to do you some company, with no-one to hold your hand if you get scared. Your road must be such a lonely one Lea… Unfortunately no-one can do it with you, and I’m sure you know I would be right by your side if I could. Today I imagined you smiling when I left that little angel in your grave and stood there for a little bit talking to you, but then I had to go, and that must have been a shock for you, that must have hurt you, and for that I’m so sorry Lea. I am so, so sorry. I miss you so much, my love. This world will never be the same without you here. This kind of thing should only happen when people get older, more prepared – if that’s possible –, and with more experience as to what life really is all about.

Sometimes every shining little inert thing makes me remind you and realize I’ll never see your shining eyes again, I’ll never hear your beautiful calm voice again, I’ll never hear your quiet laughter again, I’ll never feel the touch of your skin in mine, your lips in mine, your hair itching my nose again… You will never love me again, you just can’t anymore, and sometimes I think of a little girl, alone, lost, scared of the dark, not wanting to be alone, and I just feel so guilty for loving you so much and not being able to do anything. This is not fair to anyone Lea. I take no pleasure from living in a world without you. It will never be the same, for I have known you; for I have loved and have been loved by you… I love too much to be here without you, I think. I miss you too much, and I just can’t believe in any of this…

Hello Lea, my princess. My days now are kind of strange; my life is an almost perfect mess. Lately there’s always some new, unimagined and unexpected, reason for sorrow. I feel dizzy sometimes, nauseated, and some of those bad things that have been happening to me and to people with whom I have a connection almost make want to laugh like crazy! I can’t understand this, but I’m starting to feel disgusted. It’s like I’m losing my mind, although I know I am not; I feel like a sane person living in a surrealist reality! I live in a place where I don’t belong; this is very far from anything I would conceive as fiction! This is bad fiction, it can’t be real, although if I cut myself the wound bleeds, and it still hurts... and so I’m well awake.

All the bad things happening made me feel someone has made some kind of pact with the devil on my behalf, without me knowing, and now the time has finally come for me to repay it! But that’s not true also. I never made any sort of pact, and if I did I would never have chosen to live life the way I’ve been doing; it would have been better, much better. Nothing great, or lasting, as ever happened to justify some sort o pact, but sometimes I feel I’m being punished; sometimes I feel that, for some reason, I’m paying back something. I feel I’m paying for something I didn’t get, although I have never had anything more but my imagination! In Slovakia I felt safer than I do here. In Slovakia I didn’t felt so lonely; I could always find you! You are not here...

I love you Lea. I miss you, always...

There are moments when everything seems to be falling apart my love. My days are a mess, I can see no future ahead, and bad things keep happening. Sometimes all I want is to close my eyes and remember you Lea. Only that stops, somehow, the pain. How I wish all this could be just a phase, some sort of final test before being able to hold you forever. I don’t seem to be able to write or think clearly anymore. I have lots of ideas about things I have to do, but those ideas are colliding with each other inside my mind, and it seems I’m nothing but a helpless spectator. How I miss you Lea... If only you were with me I would be so much stronger! You took away my fear. I love you so much!

People still ask me how am I doing, but I don’t know. How am I doing? How can I be doing? I’m alive, right? Am I OK? I think so, but I don’t know much more… I just know that every time I think of you, or remember something, it hurts and I feel sadness and anger. I miss you so much Lea. I love you.

My princess, I’m sorry for not being able to write to you everyday, but you know you never leave my thoughts. Yesterday I went out with some friends for dinner and some drinks and after all this time I managed to laugh a little again. And while I was doing it I was kind of amazed with myself, I don’t really know why. I know life will go on and soon I’ll be doing all the things I always did, laughing included, but today, while resting a little in bed at home, there you were again in my thoughts! I can’t help it, I just start remembering you holding me and resting your head on my chest, my arms around you, and there I go again... I miss you so much Lea! So much!

Sometimes I wonder if I have the right to be feeling the way I do. What we felt for each other was beautiful, it was true, it was strong, but also it was so recent. Our love hasn’t had time; to grow, to perish, whatever… It just hasn’t had time. And so, sometimes I wonder if I should be feeling like this, if it’s right. Were you mine just because you loved me when you died Lea?

I know you were loving me, just as you knew I was loving you deeply, but time took away from us a thing called “history together”! We had some, alright, but so short… I only remember your last words to me and your proposal for us to live together somewhere, not in Slovakia and not in Portugal. Those are some of the few things that still shine in my heart, and so I hope it’s alright for me to be feeling the way I do, loving you the way I still do, and missing you like I do… because all of those things are the most truthful part of me now.

Dovidenia Lea, môj laska...

My sweet princess, today I noticed couples holding hands and kissing on the street. And you will never have no one kissing you anymore, holding you... It's so unfair Lea! And you were so much loved! I miss you too much my darling.

My love, I’ve met you in Autumn, and we lived our love mainly in Winter. Now we begin to feel the warmth of Spring here in Portugal, and Summer will come soon, but I will never know what it feels like to hold you on warm days, with light clothes, and walk hand in hand with you without feeling cold. Every day I find a new way of missing you. And I’m sure there are so many ways of missing I haven’t experienced yet that sometimes the future scares me. I love you Lea, so much...

I miss your kisses Lea. I miss you hands touching me. I miss your laughter and kissing you. I still can't believe it won't happen anymore, and that I won’t see you again. Everytime I look at one of your pictures I can't describe what I feel! It's bad. Also I feel more lonely here than I did in Banská Bystrica. In here I feel you much too far.

For years I have had this tendency of taking pictures in cemeteries. I haven’t taken many, it’s true, but have spent hours taking pictures in cemeteries, in Rome, in Paris, in Porto… And I always looked particularly for one thing: angels’ statues.

Those statues in cemeteries, some of them of great beauty and expression, were meant for the dead. Pieces of art never intended to be amongst the living. By taking pictures of some of them I always had in my mind the intention of one day putting together an exhibition. That way, what was produced for the dead would find somehow a way into the world of the living, where their beauty could be appreciated by many more. Angels would, then, find a way into this world again, sort of saying...

And now, my love, you’re in a cemetery too, resting eternally. I have not taken pictures of yours – I wonder if I will ever do that again somewhere – but the irony of it is that now, in Vlkanová where you rest, lies the most beautiful angel I could ever imagined existing. The only one I can never photograph anymore, who loved me and was much loved by me.

Yesterday I woke up tired from a sleep filled with dreams, and today I dreamt I had fallen in the Danube, lost my camera, where I had all my pictures of our last Christmas together, and suddenly you came from nowhere just to help me, and I was crying... And then I had lost your ring too, but that one you found, and when you picked it up it wasn’t a ring anymore but a beautiful necklace with silver petals... Pain does not stop! Also several times, everyday, some moment comes to my mind, some expression of yours, some sound, some conversations, some intimate moments. And then I miss you, and then it hurts, and so here I am constantly learning what it means to be really alone.

I love you Lea.

Only earth will fill one day the hole I have within me. How I miss you, my sweet princess…

I write these words already on my way home, my love. Leaving Slovakia was not an easy thing to do, as you can imagine. Also the beginning of the journey was very complicated but, well, here I am already in Munich, waiting for the connection to Lisbon.

The staff of the Cerveny Rak pub was amazing with me. They told me that table, by your picture, will always be mine. Sometimes I got there and someone was already sitting, and so one of the staff always came to ask them to leave to another table, so I could have that one. I was offered beer, pizza, conversations, emotions and I will return as soon as I can. To be with you and to say them hello, too. I left the oldest waitress my old student card, of when I was 20, so they can see I wasn’t always like that.

I feel sad and tired today, with a huge hole inside. A huge hole.

I love you. I miss you.

Hello Lea, my love. Today is my last day in Banská Bystrica. Tomorrow I will leave Slovakia, and so today I went to see you one more time in Vlkanová. I left you a little angel over your tombstone, to keep you company. I hope you like it, she’s not as pretty as you, but she’s pretty alright.

My mind is a mess again, you know why. And physically I’m not been feeling well also. Even walking is painful sometimes. I just feel so tired of everything. I remember wishing you wouldn't feel cold in there...

Sometimes some thoughts, some memories, come into my mind. But many of those memories immediately disappear, even before I can see them clearly, even before I can remind the entire moment, of when and where they happened. I’m caught in a web of emotions, some good and some bad, and sometimes I even have the feeling that some of those emotions do not belong to me.

I know I should remember only what you have told me, that you loved me, that you missed me in bed in the morning when you wake up, that you wanted to live with me somewhere. I know that, but unfortunately other things also come to the surface sometimes, blurring everything.

How come you loved someone so messed up as I am will always be a mystery to me, and a miracle also. I thank you for that and for all the good things you made me feel. You made me realize that maybe I deserve love, and that maybe love is all that matters in this world. But who's going to love me, now you're gone? Maybe I just need time, my precious angel. Maybe something good will happen.

Here I am at the table next to your photograph, drinking one last beer with you in my heart, trying to say goodbye. I will return as soon as I can. I love you, never forget that. I miss you so much…

Hello my love. Tomorrow I’ll go to Vlkanová to see you once more. I bought a little girl with butterfly wings to put over your grave stone, to keep you company.

The day after tomorrow I’ll be leaving Slovakia. I hope to return soon. I want to ask your forgiveness about the way I’m feeling right now. I'm feeling so empty, so stupid, so unnecessary... But everything is over now, anyway.

I love you. I miss you.

Hello my love. Again, here I am sitting next to your picture. In here I feel more in peace, if that’s possible. But I feel alright, it’s as if you were physically present. I will leave Slovakia next Thursday, but before that I want to go again to Vlkanová, alone this time, to sit a little in your grave, so we can talk.

It is done, my love. Your ashes were put in your family grave in Vlkanová. There were just me and your parents, and your brother.

I had only this moment, when I laid down the three red roses I got for you, over the grave stone. I realised I had never given you a flower, not ever. But I turned away for some seconds, and I think no one noticed it. Plus, it was a honour for me to be removing the stone with your father and brother, and then putting it back again. And I have no right to feel more pain then the pain I'm sure they were feeling.

I don't know why I am telling you all this, I'm sure all this you know. I just wish you rest in peace now, and need to talk with you from time to time.

You came into my life because you had to, I believe. And you came to give me something. I will find out what it is.

I love you Lea.

I'm glad I'm here my love. It's not easy, but it's being very important. Now I know where to find you. Each day is a new stage, and at the end of each day I feel somehow stronger. Thank you for having came into my life.

Here I am, my love, in the density of the city in which you were born, where you lived your life, where we had wonderful moments. To have come here again, in these conditions, was very hard. I must tell you this, although I’m sure you knew it already. Yesterday, when I started to see Banská Bystrica in the distance through the bus window, the feeling was indescribable. I felt an urge to cry and, at the same time, an immense peacefulness. After so many hours travelling and a night without sleep you have no idea of how much my head ached. Each tear coming out from my eyes caused the headache to rise to unbearable limits and an immense burning feeling in my eyes, and so I didn’t shed many tears. Physical exhaustion and pain prevented me from that.

Your parents came to meet me at the bus station and we went to dinner together, and some “piva”, at the place where we’ve been with your friends just before Christmas; that place you used to go, where you took me, where your parents and grandparents used to go too. It was very nice of them. Your brother joined us latter, and there was a group there saying poetry at the sound of music, Spanish guitar and a traditional Eastern Europe instrument like a xylophone. I didn’t understood a word of what they were saying, of course, but I really liked the sound and the rhythm of it. The way it was said, and the sonority of Slovak language – you knew I just loved to hear you talk, the sound of your words – made it all very beautiful. I even heard García Lorca in slovak! Plus I noticed, in the wall at the end of the room, someone had put a picture of you, one taken that night we were together in there with your friends. I have that picture of you too, but that one in there, in that pub wall, is in black and white and has a black stripe on it, diagonally. Suddenly I didn’t believed again what has happened to you, and another tear rolled down (I must get used to this feeling), and again the pain made me stop.

Today I was planning to see you. I thought you were in the cemetery in Banská Bystrica, and my intentions were to go and spend some time with you. But your mother told me yesterday that weather conditions didn’t allowed for you to be put in your final resting place yet. She also told me they’re planning to do that this Saturday, if weather allows. You will rest in Vlkanová, in a family grave. It was kind of a shock for me, I must admit, to be imagining you somewhere, still here, and not being able anymore to visit you! But now I hope the weather allows for the ceremony to happen this Saturday, because it would be very good for me to be present at that last moment of yours, to be there for you the moment your body will touch the ground.

All of this is still like a nightmare, but be as it may that’s life: it ends. You didn’t had time for so many things, we didn’t had time for fulfilling so many plans and desires, but you experienced life, and we had moments and feelings together no one will ever take away from us. I must try to remember that always, whenever I get sad, whenever I feel lonely, whenever I miss you. You had a life, you lived it, you managed to be much loved, and your last months on this earth you loved someone for whom you were the most beautiful, extraordinary and special element of this world. And so I must feel much honored to be present when your body will be put to the ground, my love. One day mine will be there too. If your buriel happens this Saturday I will feel proud to be present, maybe to justify all your other moments in which I wasn’t. And I will know how to deal with the pain Lea, because I love you, for better or for worse.

Hello my love. I’ve packed a few things, and in a while I will shut down my computer and leave. I’m starting today the journey towards you. Tomorrow by the end of the day I’ll be once more in your city, and hopefully the day after tomorrow (the 5th, like the day of your birthday) I’ll be again next to you, my little princess.

So I just wanted to tell you one more time before I go that I love you, that I miss you, that a world without you has too much echo… Guide my way to you now, and be with me always Lea, even if I love again. Don’t give up on me.

Hello my beautiful love. Tomorrow night I’m traveling to Lisbon, at last. My flight is at 6 in the morning and I hope to be in your city around 5 in the afternoon. I believe only Thursday I’ll be able to be next to you my love, but now we don’t need to hurry no more, right? We have no more decisions to make together; I won’t go to Slovakia in May to meet you no more, we won’t be going to Ukraine after all, we don’t need to think about solutions to live together any more, there will never be children from our love… fate decided everything for us. Maybe someone, somewhere, thought we were much too stupid to make our own decisions, or much too undeserving of a future together, of happiness… I don’t know what to think anymore, I feel too tired.

Anyway, soon I will be next to you, at your final resting place. Guide my way Lea, only you can do that. You are free now.

Hello my love! Another stupid Sunday as gone by. I always found Sundays stupid, never liked them, but now they’re even worse: you’re not here anymore to be my goal. And today rain came again to make everything even sadder.

I remember the first night we slept together! It was from the 24th to the 25th of December! When we woke up it was Christmas morning and I opened my eyes and you were looking at me, with those bright eyes of yours. I remember having said my wish had come true! There I was with you Lea! There was my biggest present ever…

Well, I just want to tell you I love you. But you know that, my little princess…

Hello my love. Today was a very strange day. I’m kind of sick and I was feverish the whole night. I managed to sleep well, though. But ever since I woke up, late, I’ve been feeling very sad.

Today, I don’t quite understand why, I felt you very close and I missed you more than usual. Or at least I missed you differently, because every little thing made my emotions burst. Maybe this is due to the coming of my departure to Slovakia to be with you, I don’t know. The prospect of making the same long journey I once did but not having you in the end waiting for me hurts me a lot, it’s true. But you’ll never be an old toy, and besides loving you I also respected you immensely. And you were aware of that. So, as a sign of many many things, amongst which my eternal love and respect, I will make this journey again to be with you one more time. I know you would do the same for me Lea.

I love you. And you’ll never know how I miss you…

Hello my love. It’s Friday, again. Time never stops here, and lately it feels it’s been passing very slowly. It seems so long ago the day I received the tragic news of your death. I received those awful news exactly three weeks ago, only six days after the accident. I was still living my life for six days – although worried about not having news from you for so long – and you were not here anymore...

So it’s Friday again, and tomorrow four weeks would have passed since the day that accident happened. One month! Already an eternity! Each day in this world, a world where you exist no more, will seem forever... I wonder how I will miss you some years from now. I wonder how I’ll remember you if I reach old age. I wonder so many things lately...

I love you Lea.

Memory is a funny thing: what we remember, and how we remember it, never ceases to surprise me.

After I came from Slovakia, in the beginning of January, I spent a few days with very good friends of mine in Porto. I’ve told you about them (how I wish now that you’ve met). And while I was there, one day we went to a store and I found myself looking for a small thermal cup in which to keep warm my coffee or tea.

When I met you in Latvia I remember you always carried one of that everywhere. And I was looking for one like yours because, maybe, I wanted to be more like you! Maybe I wanted more and more things that would identify me with you! I don’t know…

This night – again full of dreams of which I can’t remember, as most of my nights lately – I woke up with a fading memory of a dream: I was searching the internet and I had finally found a thermal cup exactly like yours! It was exactly the same, and I wanted to buy it… I woke up before I bought it Lea. Does it have a meaning? Or am I simply missing you?

Exactly a week from today I’ll be in Banská Bystrica, at your grave, and I am scared. Be with me, please. I will love you always.

I’ve been working on archaeological sites, as I’ve told you. I’ve been digging up skeletons from medieval times. That’s what most anthropologists do, and I am one of them. Since December I’ve stop doing that, but while I was doing it sometimes I wondered, and sometimes I imagined who those men, women and children were…

Maybe one day, in the future, someone will do the same in the place where you are. Maybe one day, in the future, someone will take you out from the ground… And that person will never know how loved you were. They will never imagine how much love someone was feeling for you. Someone will touch your bones without knowing anything about you, without knowing how beautiful and sweet you were, without having the right to touch you… If that day comes please remember I love you. Please try to let go and just come to me.

I will love you Lea, always, even if the world thinks I’m just a fool.

My love, I just realised I will grow old, while you'll always be 29... You're always be beautiful.

I won’t let you die Lea. Little by little I start to forget your expressions, your face, your smile… I always had this problem, you knew it. I can’t hold physical traits for long. So, very often, I need to look at one of your photographs. And then I feel this urge to cry, I am sorry. I don’t even know anymore if it is for you that I cry, or me, or us. I just feel this isn’t right. This is not fair – assuming fairness had a place in this world. But God is a joke.

The moments we had were the most magical moments any human being could have. And they happened to us! And they were so precious that I don’t really know if I want to live my life in their absence anymore. Will I love again? And if I do, what will that say about me? Won’t I be just another biological being, with feelings left aside to a second plan? Where will humanity, then, fit in me?

The idea of loving again hurts me as much as the idea of not experiencing love anymore in my life. But if I love again who will I be loving for real, some other person? How can I stop loving you? Will I ever be honest with others? Does it matter?

A million thoughts cross my mind every instant, and lately I’ve been remembering fragile moments of ours. Suddenly, they just find a way to my mind, and there they are! There YOU are again! And it is painful to realize they will never cease to be only memories.

I remembered the day I gave you your Christmas present: you opened it sitting on my lap and we just stood there kissing. If kissing had a meaning that was it! I felt you as something much too precious to touch, to put in words. The way we kissed and touched each other was just like as if we didn’t belong to this world anymore. We were so distant from it! And we just stood there, for what seemed hours, and the warmth of your body made me wish to have a daughter just like you. I love you and, at the same time, wished you were my daughter! I loved you completely. And now, how many boxes will I need to store away all this emotions? I don’t want to let you go Lea. I don’t want to let you die. Please don’t die my love.

You would only die if everyone who loved you would stop doing so, if they would stop remembering. But don’t be afraid, even if everyone else stops remembering you… You will always have me. As long as I live I won’t let you go, I won’t let you die. I love you so much, still, that my life will be nothing more than my love for you. I may even love again, but my love for you will always be a constant, maybe my damnation… I don’t care. There’s nothing in this world that can take that away from me.

I miss you so much! At least you will never know how hard it is to miss someone as much as I miss you…

My sweet princess, since you died I’m restless, you know that. And at night I have strange dreams which I can’t remember when I wake up. Tonight it happened again: I woke up shouting from a bad dream in the middle of the night. I woke up terrified. Last week the same thing happened, and I don’t remember nothing like this ever since I was a kid… And it's always in the middle of the night, when all is quiet and it seems the world does not exist. I wish I could shout your name during the night, for you to come and take all this ghosts away from here. Because I'm in love with an angel...

I love you Lea. I promise I will never, ever, stop loving you. Help me keep that promise my love, because I do need help now.

It's saturday. I hate weekends! There's nothing to do, and when you have no money you can't even go out from the house. I'm hollow.

In a few days I'll go to Banská Bystrica, my little princess. I can't stop thinking about you and how I will react to all this trip. Upon returning I'll have to make some important decisions about my life. I'm saving those for latter, after I visit you. Let's first see what's left.

I just came here today to tell you I love you. I'm sure you hear me whisper just that all the time... I miss you so much.

Hello my love. First of all I’m sorry for not have write you yesterday, but there will be days when it is impossible, others of no inspiration… That doesn’t mean, absolutely, that I forgot about you. There’s no chance of that happening. You never leave my thoughts, you couldn’t…

I want you to know there’s a chance for me to go back to Africa. I didn’t told you anything because I didn’t wanted it really, and because it was just a possibility, anyway. Nothing solid. Also because I knew that it would be very difficult for you to come with me, though I think you would want. With your lack of skin pigmentation, as you told me, it would be very bad for you to be there. And all I wanted was to be near you. Also, Africa being what it is, at least some parts, it scared me a little to be there for almost 4 years. It still scares me, in a way, although I always tended to do precisely the things that scared me!

Now I’m thinking about it seriously. Today I was lost in my thoughts about you and I realized there’s nothing for me here. I’m just going crazy without a purpose in life! What am I doing here? Why should I stay? Why should I be scared now to go back again? After all, it’s where I came from, where I was born… Maybe I can go back to Angola, my homeland, for a 4 year PhD, and I also have the possibility of going to Guinea-Bissau, or Guinea-Conakry for some months to study chimpanzees, as I’ve told you about last Christmas.

The idea of going now, me being so fragmented and fragile, is kind of scary. I can feel really lost in there, or, on the other hand, I can find something I need. I don’t know. Anyway, the only thing that really could scare me for real already happened. The only thing I really could NOT lose I have lost already. No-one will ever take anything more I need away from me. You see, I don’t need to be afraid no more. Your death changed everything, and why should I be scared now? What more can I lose now? My life? I have to laugh!

I just love you and think about you every moment. I still don’t know how I can try to fill the huge place you left empty inside me. Maybe nothing, ever, will be enough... I don’t know. Maybe it's suposed to be like that for ever, empty! In a way I feel in peace now, but I don’t feel right anymore. One thing I know: now you can come with me everywhere! The sun won't hurt you no more.

Maybe a day will come when I’ll need to lean on someone. Can you be there? I don’t know where I’m heading anymore, you know that! But still I want to ask: can you come with me to where I’m going?

If your death could by no means be avoided, no means whatsoever, I hope you forgive me the presumption but I wish you could have died in my arms. This would allow me to nurse you away from here, to caress and kiss you and tell you everything would be alright. I would be dilacerated from pain, but I would also feel the peace I need, dedicating myself to you on your last moments on this earth. You: the most beautiful element I had ever seen or imagined. I discovered love, I think… Only now… I wish I was a stone.

I love you Lea, my princess. I love you so much.

With these words, however imperfect, what I’m really expressing is my eternal love. I decided to write them here because, I think, I want the world – or at least the small part of it that by chance ends up in this web page – to witness what is still happening. Also, I decided to write only in English because that was the language in which we met, and which we both used to communicate with one another. Of course I could think in one of two ways: now, either you understand all the languages, or you understand none anymore. I prefer to think you understand them all, but still I will use the language of our love.

You know, I never believed in love, to be completely honest. I always thought, and in a way I still do, that people are too much self-centered and egotistical. And maybe that’s not bad, maybe that’s only a means for survival. But YOU made me want to believe in that crazy concept we call love, simply because you were the most loveable human being I have ever met in my life. And, to top it all, you loved me! That amazed me.

Of course now that you’re gone from this world is quite simple to write this, to feel this. We won’t be able anymore to see how far our love would go, right? Where it would take us. But what’s also true is that I already felt it when you were alive. I had the chance, at least, to tell you eye to eye and in words what I felt. Nevertheless, my love, I wish I could have told you more, much more. I wish I could have held you harder in my arms, and for longer, and that I could have kissed you more, and done more of so many other things... Now I wish I had exhausted you with my love. I didn’t wanted to scare you away, or give you a wrong impression, and so I restrained myself from saying, or doing, so many things. I felt you did it also! But you know people sometimes need space, so they say… People sometimes need time, so they say… People sometimes need to think things over and over again before deciding or assuming something, so they say… And so we did, my love. We were much too polite, maybe! We wanted to make it right, and I tried to be a gentleman with you all the time, although what I desired the most, most of the time, was to be very basic. You changed my chemistry and all my cells were attracted to you. Also my desire for you was to big to put in words... At least I think you realized that. I'm sure you did...

Every time I went to bed, since I came from Slovakia, I always felt asleep imagining you lying sideways, all curled up as you used to do, very close to me. One of your arms over me, one of your hands holding one of mine, as we used to sleep… That was how I felt asleep, looking forwards toward May, when we would rejoin and do it again for real, if only time had given us the chance. But time didn’t gave YOU a chance and deprived us permanently from being together. And to you it did worse, it took the possibility of living your life with me – or with someone else – away from you. And I say this because there was always the possibility for you to know someone better than me. After all I just loved you without knowing what love really is; without knowing if I was doing you good. I’m almost sure I was, though, although sometimes I felt you were sad for us to be so distant… That's what happens when you love a person with nothing on its pockets… I hadn’t had a chance to decide to stay with you, or not to stay. It was not my choice. For the moment it was out of my reach, although I was trying to find a solution that would allow us to be together permanently. Too late...

Still, you told me yourself that you knew how big and true my love for you was. And it really was, it really was. And so, despite the words I will use here, or even despite the fact that one day, for some reason, I stop writing, or write less frequently, my love for you made me realize how wonderful life can be, and how insignificant some things really are.

In a way I was prepared – or preparing – to lose many things in life, many people even. But I was absolutely NOT prepared to lose you! Now I don’t know if what I feel is anger, self-pity, hope, peacefulness, emptiness… I just know that I miss you! That’s what rules my days now: missing you. And maybe missing you will be enough reason to go on, so I can honour you and the love we shared for the rest of my life. Time didn’t gave us a chance, and so I see no reason now to give TIME a chance back.

I will go on loving you.

Today, and yesterday, have been too difficult for me. I can't really tell you why. I just feel like I'm going crazy... Not to see you again? I'm sorry, my love. I know I must be strong. Please help me if you can. It's like only now I'm realizing the true dimension of what you were, of what was taken from me... Me, me, me, I know... It was you who lost your life. I just lost my biggest reason to be alive. I love you so much.

I'm not feeling so good right now. Today I started to feel bad about myself. How I wish I could have you in my arms like I did, and like I dreamt about doing again so many times. How I wish I could just hold you close and feel the scent of your hair, of your skin, of your breath, like I used to do. Remember?

The thing is that little by little the certainty that I won't do it again, not ever, is taking over me; it is taking peaces of me and leaving nothing in their place... It's hurting too much my love. I'm affraid I'm loosing grip, although most of the time I know what I should do from now on. When I think I'm beggining to react again, when I think I'm on the right track again, it comes all over again... You come all over again; my memories, your scent, the memory of your touch, the warmth of your lips in mine, your fragile fingers on my hair... Please Lea, help me not to let you go ever! Am I loosing my mind?

All I have is this place, where I imagine I talk to you, where I imagine you hear me. I miss you, and I miss me in a world where you existed. I love you so much. I am so sorry.

Now I have all the time in the world. My days feel like they’re longer than usual. Maybe I’m living your days too, so time doubles for me. It’s not easy to have so many time and not knowing what to do with it.

You made me feel happy. So many times I realized how lucky I was to have found you in my life. A few months before we met I was supposed to go to Turkey, for a meeting, but I didn’t. Luckily I went to Latvia, because I thought about skipping that one too! But I went, and I met you, and you changed everything!

You made feel loved. When I woke up in the morning with your touch and your kisses, and opened my eyes just to see you staring at me, it was amazing. I have never felt something so strong coming from someone. Also you gave me the most unforgettable night of my life, when you took me to ice skate in that frozen lake, at night. Just you and I ice skating, only with the light of the moon and the stars, was my idea of heaven; even when you came close, and tried to kiss me, and I felt again on ice… as usual. But it was wonderful, my love. it was pure sensitivity and emotion.

You also made me feel proud. The way you were gave me the certainty that I had the most gentle and sweet creature on earth. I was proud of you, and there are no words to tell you what it meant to me to have your love.

I’m not perfect, but I think I deserved you. What I wanted for you, and for us together, was so true and beautiful that I’m sure I deserved you. And the rest of me, the bad part, I’m sure you would make it go away along with all my nightmares.

You told me once that in slovak my last name, Rosa, meant dew. In portuguese it means rose, and so I give you both with this picture I took years ago. Maybe in spring morkings dew will be all over you...

You’re “home” for me. I love you.

Sometimes it's very hard to be right. I can't explain why, but there was something sad and tragic about you, and when I fell in love with you I knew I was falling in love with someone from out of this world. Now I'm suffering from your absence, but I would do it all over again.

I love you. I miss you.

Hello my angel!

I came here now because I remembered something very beautiful, one of those moments of ours that I will not forget. Remember when we got to your house and we put up the Christmas tree? Your father had gave you a very pretty small pine tree and we were on the kitchen putting all the Christmas decoration on with the tree always falling from the bucket with stones! It was so beautiful that moment, with your cat trying to destroy all our decoration, we drinking tea, the all life ahead of us... I felt home, in there with you. I was home!

I love you. Goodnight my princess.

Lea's words I'll always remember

(From January 15th, 2009)

Hi my love.

Everything you wrote me I knew long, long time ago…

There is no need to explain me something what I already know and is clear as daylight.

Of course it made me feel much, much more better. I miss you a lot my darling. I can’t concentrate for anything, I can’t read cause I don’t remember what I already red. I can’t write, I can’t learn, I don’t have any new ideas for the things I should do in my job. I can’t do anything.

I did not sleep for a long time and I am so tired.

You know, I love you a lot. Maybe, everything just need some time.

Kisses Lea

I hope you believed in angels, my love. Now you're an angel too... Come to me tonight. I need you so much...

When we were walking down the hills near Banská Bystrica I told you about an idea of mine: through photographs build an imaginary home. I don’t know if you realized it but in a way what I was telling you was that I needed for so many years to find mine, and that moment I was sure I’d found it. It was only imaginary for the moment; we still needed to work so many things out if we wanted to stay together finally. But still I already knew where my home was. My home was you Lea. After so many years of travelling I finally was sure where I wanted to be: close to you.

It was very strange, and good, to wake up by your side. I had never waken up with someone kissing me gently, caressing my hair and face, as if you didn’t really wanted to wake me up. It was amazing to open my eyes and see you looking closely at me. That is what I want every day for the rest of my life, but we both know now that I won’t have it no more, right?

Now you will never have any idea of how happy you made me every time I received a message from you saying thing like “my love, I love you and miss you too much”! Those messages meant the world to me! I couldn’t wait to see you and hold you in my arms again, tight, very close to me. I should have held you harder when we were together. I should have fused you into my body. At least I should not have returned to Portugal! But we were supposed to be together again soon, you know that. What happened to you could never cross my mind. Sometimes I still believe you will appear in front of me. Sometimes I still believe we’ll be together and happy. I'm so, so proud that you love me!

One thing makes my sorrow ease: at least your last days in this world were spent knowing that I LOVED YOU UNCONDITIONALLY. You knew that there was nothing in this world I loved and wanted more than you and, knowing that, you loved me too. It was like living a dream. You didn’t knew, but you made my biggest dream come true my love. Suddenly my happiness was much too big for my soul to hold. Either way, you changed me forever.

How will I go on without you I still don’t know. I’m scared my love. I’m feeling lonely as I never thought someone could feel, and so I’m a bit scared. But, on the other hand, I know now I will never be alone again, because you’re with me always (as you already were when you were alive). The difference is that now I want to be you too. I want you to come inside me and live through me. I want to act as you did, I want to speak as you did, I want to walk as you did, I want to remember to like the things you did, I would love to do in life what you would want to do. Because I love you, and because loving you will make me love myself more too. Do I make any sense?

You know, I don’t know how many times I have to say I LOVE YOU until this incredible pain goes away… Maybe if you could just come back to get me would be easier. The same way I told you I love you, I also want you to know that if you could come for me I would hold your hand and go without questions. Of course I know it’s only fantasy, but if you’re hearing me I want you to be sure. I would hold your hand and gave up everything just to be with you and to love you forever.

There’s no logic in what happened to you my love, and so I’m so sorry if what I say stops making sense. I just love you and have no idea of what to do with this love now. You gave me life and someone took yours away from you.

Loving you

It's very late and I can't sleep, scanning the internet for fragments of you. My eyes ache from crying... I love you and I will try to sleep now. I know sometimes you visit and kiss me while I'm sleeping. It's all I need now. It's all I want from now on. I love you. I miss you.

Hello my angel

(Written and sent to her on January 14th, 2009, 17 days before she died)

It´s midnight and here I am thinking of you...

I miss you by my side in bed Lea! I miss you by my side, in every occasion, not only in bed. But it is at night, when I switch off the lights to sleep, that I imagine all the things that happened (and much more that still CAN happen), and I feel terribly your absence! I want your hands on my hair again... I want your head resting on my chest again... I want to wake up with you curled over my body again… I want to hold hands with you on the street again… I want to hear you laugh again… I want your kisses! And more kisses!

All I think includes you Lea. Everywhere I go it’s as if you’re there. I want you with me, and I am writing this mail because I really need to tell you one thing. I really need to be sure that you really understand me, ok? So here is what I need do tell you: I have absolutely no idea of what will happen in my life, of course, but I need you to know that I would give up everything for you! I would live anywhere, just as long as you wanted me and you loved me too. I just want you to know that. I never met anyone in my life so sweet and gentle, so deserving of my feelings. When I think of you my body cells hurt! I feel almost physical pain, you know?

Well, I just needed to tell you this, right now, even if it’s late and I’m completely exhausted! I need no Masters! I need no wonderful job! I don’t need to be rich! I could do anything, I could live everywhere in this world… Just as long as you would want to share your life with me, just as long as I could deserve your love…

Sometimes people get sad… sometimes people can’t understand some things that happen. Maybe if some things were said, maybe if people talked more about what they feel, just maybe some misunderstandings could be avoided! I want no misunderstanding between us Lea! I want you to know for sure this: I will give up everything for you. I feel that without you I have really nothing…

I love you. I want you. I miss you.