"I was never blinded by the moonlight until that night when we first kissed and held hands by the foot of the mountains. I still vividly recall your touch, your smell, your 'little-girl' smile when you laughed and tossed back your hair in the wanton abandonment of all prior relationships. Then, you had the strength of an ox and the courage of a lion as you spoke about all the things you planned to do with the remainder of your life and all the different places in the world that you would visit before old age struck down your freedom of movement and impaired your ease of limbs.
To now hear your shallow breath as I watch you sleep pains me deeply and wraps my heart in the barbed wire of pending loss to come. To see you now, my dearest, as your feeble body sinks effortlessly into the sheets of the bed you have lived in for nigh on two years this September, no longer reflects the woman you were to me in robust health and unbridled passion; the woman of old who was so determined to live life to the full and to brook no nonsense in its making. No more does the mountain cast its image across the lake in a true reflection of what once was.
Soon, dearest, I fear my darkest day to come when the moon will set forever behind the mountain and only your shadow shall remain in the places around me. Oh love of my life, why did you have to go and die before me? Could you not have lingered a while longer so that we may have journeyed together one last time to our favourite place by the mountain in the moonlight?" William Forde: April 14th, 2017.