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.