I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since we lost Erin… really crazy to think about a number like that… more than a third of all the time that she was alive, longer than we were married, almost as long as we were together. I was 30 when she left… now I’m 40 and I can’t believe how much has changed and happened since then. I would give anything to be able to see the almost-40-year-old that she would have become by now.
There have been so many big numbers floating through my head… the 16th was the 22nd anniversary of when we started to date. The 24th was our 16th wedding anniversary. And now today, the 26th, the 10th anniversary of when she decided to leave this world. Needless to say, I’ve been spending a lot of time going through all of the things of hers that I have. I’ve especially been enjoying going through all of her writing, including all the letters. It’s been so amazing to be able to feel close to her and her memory by reading her words and I decided that I would want to try to share that feeling with all of you.
I’ve now added a section of the website for Erin’s writings. You can find it in the top menu of the site (between the photo gallery and the blog… if you don’t see it, trying refreshing the page) as well as on the following page:
I hope that you enjoy her writing and are able to find some of the joy and closeness to Erin that I was able to feel.
It’s hard to put into words… Some of the letters are quite heavy, written during rocky times in our marriage where we were trying to work things out and struggling. Others were written during high school as we were falling in love and so completely soaked and lost in those intense feelings. Through it all, though, regardless of the content or the context, shining through every page, is just pure Erin. Her humor, her snark, her depth, her beautiful and complex heart. I’m so grateful to have all of these words of hers which capture so much of who she was. Of course, it will never be enough and never be able to completely capture all of her… those of you lucky enough to know her understand how big her spirit and personality were. I wish that I could share all of these letters with you so that you could feel it, but of course you can imagine that they are quite personal and, of course, meant by her to be private. Still, I hope that you also get some sense of closeness to her through her other writing that’s on the site.
I hope that you’re all doing well. As always, please please please feel so welcome and encouraged to contribute to this site in any way that you can imagine. If you don’t see the ability to do that already on the site in a way that you would feel comfortable with, please let me know what I can do to give you that opportunity. That can mean a feature on the site we don’t already have, improving a feature that’s already there, or just sharing something with me that you think should be added to the site.
Thank you for sharing this with us