As usual, I’d like to wish all my readers a Happy Valentine’s Day.
I’d also like to wish Gee a happy birthday, and remember the very special woman I married on this day. I still think that Woo, Gee’s best friend, said it best:
Yet we get to know her and love her and be loved by her….how privileged are we.
This come from an e-mail I wrote Woo in November of 2001.
Dear Woo—
The real problem is Gee is the best person I’d ever met. It is as simple, and no more profound, than that. We were a perfect fit for each other. She was warm, and thoughtful, and funny. She could make me laugh when no one else could. That I found her, really convinced me that it isn’t all just random chance, but that there is such a thing as fate. From the first time I heard her voice, I knew that I loved her and always had—I knew that I had found what I had been looking for all my life. I never felt as comfortable around a person as I did with Gee…no need to pretend I was someone I wasn’t…no need to hide who I really was. She loved me perfectly—even for all my imperfections—with out any conditions or reasons.
Her fierceness and strength were two of the things I loved most about her. She was a sweet, funny, intelligent and beautiful person. She could be stubborn and frustrating—and she did things that drove me crazy—but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. The thing that really showed me how much strength she had was the day after her surgery in May of last year. She had been in surgery for nine-and-a-half hours…and yet, the next day she got up out of bed and walked.
I’ve never been so lost before, not even when my twin died. I never ever thought that I would miss someone more that my identical twin…but that was before I met Gee. The pain inside is like someone stabbed an icicle into my heart. The real anger and sadness I feel for Gee isn’t for me—or even for my loss of her–but for the unfairness of what happened to her—that she had to go through all the pain and suffering. I would give anything for just one more day with her but I know that’s just not possible. The greater sadness I feel is for all the people that never got a chance to meet her.
Although the time we had together was really quite brief…in many ways our love and life together was like the light of a magnesium flare…something that is so pure, bright and perfect—even from the beginning–the brightest, whitest and purest light..and for the short time it exists it only grow brighter….but then fades to darkness… I know that many people spend all of their lives searching for a love like that and never find it, and in that at least, I am luckier than most. Even with all the hardships of her illness, we both made the best of what we had together.
I wish I had more photos of Gee and me. I also wish that she had written me more…but writing letters was never her strong point. I also wish I could really know if I had done everything I could. I guess I still have doubts whether I did everything right or not. I also wish we had had just more time together…there are so many things we still wanted to do…
It has been almost eight years since Gee has been gone, and over seven years since I wrote the words above, yet they still describe how I feel perfectly. If you are new to reading my blog, I would recommend you read my Life with Gee pages to understand who Gee was, and how lucky I was to have her in my life.
Right now, I’m heading off to the marina check on the boat that I named after Gee.
My friend Dave found this photo on an archived drive of his. Its the first photo I took of Gee from back when we had just gotten engaged. It was taken in her apartment in Seattle, right after we drove cross country in September 1999. This was great because I didn’t have a copy of this photo due to a hard drive crash about three weeks later.
Gee and Dan at Gee’s new apartment in Seattle.