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.