"Allow your tears to fall and dam them not. Let them water sorry soul and quench all heartbreak's capacity to suspend daily life. Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was choice, but as to falling in love with you, I had no control. For the first time in my life, having no control over events allowed me to let go and brought me a happiness I hadn't hoped for and could never have anticipated.
Then when our happiness was at its highest, my absence of control over life's events heaped on me a source of pain I never wanted and had silently feared. When you died and left me alone with my thoughts as sole companion and memories of precious time spent together, I felt as though I'd break in two and never feel whole again. I miss you more each day than any human was ever meant to miss another and I cling to life and pray that the place where you now rest has room for one more beside you.
Like two strong oaks who stood side by side in fruitful marriage, we grew more splendid in our love each day, until the time came when we held hands in the sky above. Then when our happiness was at its highest, tragedy struck and wrenched us apart as an earthquake struck at our heart. I awoke that fatal day to find you lying on the ground, having been felled by a force of nature greater than yourself. My branches were broken and left battered and bruised and I cared not if I laid down and died alongside you.
For such a long time after you had gone, I kept myself to myself and made myself small and distant in the presence of others. Then one day, some years after your passing, the clouded sky above cleared. I lifted my widow's veil and felt the sun upon my face once more and it felt good. Over the months that followed, I rediscovered myself as the positive partner you once knew. Life had started to stir inside me once more and instead of continuing to deprive my body trunk of nourishment, I started to take advantage of the additional nutrients within the soil where you once stood. I started to make my experiences with you a reason to go on living instead of an excuse to withdraw from life. It was as though your very spirit had empowered me to move on with my life and was giving me the additional strength to do so. I felt deep within that you had given me permission to grow splendid again. I felt reborn. The following years saw me spread my roots ever more widely and deeper, and during the time that followed, I grew taller, stronger and grander than I'd ever been before.
I know that from your forest in the sky, you think not badly of me for growing bigger since you left my side. But you see, therein lies the secret of my most recent splendour; you never did leave me and it is your strength that gives me my present growth. As I grow taller each day, I sense I am growing ever closer to you. I no longer need to mark the ground where you fell since I realised that I am that ground and I fell with you. I need no memory of you to see your face alongside me; all I require is to look across and see you standing there at my side, there where you always were and will always be. I no longer stand alone since I rejoined the forest family once more. Good night my love, until tomorrow. I love you." William Forde: November 19th, 2015.