It's actually 6 days past 2.5 years. I hadn't intended to come back and write. I guess I thought I would never come back and write again. But here I am. It's not that I’ve forgotten. Nor is it that I am better or that I don’t think of Kate every day. I thought I would never come back and write again because I don’t believe anyone ever comes to this site and reads this information. I don’t believe there is any reason to be here and even less reason to write. There is nothing to be accomplished. So why am I here? I am here precisely because I don’t believe anyone comes to this site. It has been 2.5 years and I guess everyone expects me to be over it. No one asks, no one talks, no one mentions Kate. She is fading away. I still wear my wedding ring because I can’t bear to take it off. Part of me wants to. I think it is time. But I can’t get myself to take that step so it is still there. Even as Kate fades. There is a coffee cup in the cupboard that Kate bought at Lego Land in California years ago. It has her name printed on it. Her name was printed on after the Lego Land picture was put on and after the cup was glazed. So her name is fading while the rest of the cup stays bright. That is how it feels to me. Life is bright. It is here and it is now, but slowly she fades away. It breaks my heart, still. I have plans to do a lot of work on the house this summer. I will remodel the bath, change out the carpets, paint the hall and then redo the entire kitchen. Money may not hold out to get it done, but those are the plans today. When I am done, it will be less our house and more my house I guess. That bothers me as well. She will fade from the house. And the kids- I have such little knowledge of their struggles. I hope and pray that she is not fading from their lives, although I know she must be. How could it be otherwise? Like me, they are creating new lives. They are moving on, making friends, setting goals, accomplishing and doing and dreaming and hurting. I don’t want her to fade but I suppose their lives are not so different than my own and time really does turn most things to dust. I don’t have the memories I used to. I have a hard time seeing her and I think my memory is as much created by the pictures I look at as it is by my actual recollection. I hear her voice on the voicemail (I haven’t been able to bring myself to change it) and I have no reaction. I know it is her- but it seems so disconnected from my life. But I still talk to her, hope to feel her next to me. I go to sleep at night wishing to dream about her and trying to remember how it felt to touch her or feel her touch. The first time I ever sent her flowers, I signed the card “Forever and ever and two weeks.” I don’t know any longer if the phrase had been used between us before that or if those flowers were the first. But it became the phrase that I said to her whenever I wanted to remind her of how much I cared. Forever and ever and two weeks. I told her it meant that even after the end of time I would still love her. She is fading away- at least the signs of her life and at some level the specific memory. But not the love. I know today that the phrase really meant what it said. I will love her forever and ever and past the end of time as long as I am alive. And even then for 2 more weeks.