These words are my gift and I hope, Christian, that you can hear them and feel them where you are. Christian and I rarely gave each other gifts. Though, I remember some breathtaking ones from him. Christian once found a baby mouse in the road outside of our condominium and brought it into our house, he fed it with a baby dropper, and bought it a hamster maze. I named that mouse Lucky! Once Christian, somehow secretly, took every (and I must have more than 80) vinyl Bob Dylan album I had (and Christian wasn’t a particular fan of Bob Dylan) and played them into his computer to digitize them, removing the scratches from every song. Or their was the pair of white doves, one named Clara, and their giant flight cage with each wooden slat milled by his hand. Our gifts were always made of little more than work and love.
We were what each other needed, and working together we were able to carve perfection out of very little. He gave me the fortune of knowing what it feels like to be blessed - truly blessed. My faith in Christian, his solidity and rightness and goodness is unshakeable. Not even his death can put a dent in the trust I have in everything Christian ever did or was or is. His boundless strength over the years has been built in me like one of the sculptures he relished making. Steel but with flexible curves to bend and yield and accept any eventuality. To live from this place where anything and everything is truly ALL RIGHT is the gift that Christian and I and May and Clara lived together. Even through some very not all right experiences we learned to trust beyond reason and lean on each other to ride out any storm.
Ten years ago on October 13th 2001 the world had just exploded and with the worlds foundations crumbled; we got married. I spoke that day of the bad things in life that eventually brought us to the good and the light of hope in the midst of darkness. If my words that day were correct and there is a reason for it all. Than the reason for all our work and play and happiness and sorrow; the sickness and health and time and love that we had together; is May and Clara. Of all the things Christian created in his life, they are his masterpieces. When they came the center of our universe shifted to them as to the sun. The reciprocal love and light that showed on Christian and the girls faces whenever they saw each other was almost blinding. There was never a greater father. With May and Clara, Christian had found his true calling and I find reason to hope.
Thank you, Christian for your life and love. You gave us everything you had! Truly blessed was our life together more so because we knew that as we lived it. Because of you I am blessed today, still, with not one, but two angels filled with your love and strength and wisdom and beauty, by my side. To honor you in this new reality, where we will miss you so deeply and constantly, it seems to me there are two choices. I choose to go forward focused not on what I will have to do alone, but on what we have had and what May and Clara and I will have the privilege of doing together. I cherish every hour of the 15 years we had and owe you my eternal gratitude for the gift of your brilliant daughters, their possibility and clear bright light.
Christian, I love you, sweetest boy. I will relish every moment for you.