Miss you

Dear Jen,
                I used to nurture a small hope that you might have left one last message for me, to arrive or be found after your death. The other day, I was in the process of changing phones (taking over Primus's phone now that he's upgraded) and discovered a text message from you stored on the SIM card, one that I thought I'd deleted. It was sent in October 2007 (about three phones ago), while you were away with the boys and I was at home. It ended 'Miss you' - you normally ended phone calls with 'Love you'.
                In the immediate aftermath of your death, your absence was burning so strongly in every moment that it felt like a presence. In those depths of grief, I was missing what you did for us - your role in our lives - just as strongly as I missed you yourself. Back then I compared it to losing a leg - not fatal but disabling - so that every time I tried to take a step, and wondered why I couldn't, I thought of you.
               Now after four years, the gap left by your absence has long been filled in some way, even if inadequately. Our lives run on week after week, and we've found a substitute for every practical contribution that you once made. Thanks to the loyalty of great friends, I'm not as isolated as I feared I might be, even if I still don't have the depth and intimacy and continuity of relationship that I had in you.
              Indeed, your absence has long become routine. Your place at the table, or on the other side of the bed, is still empty, but that's now normal. The void in our lives has closed up. Being a single parent is tough but not disastrous, and the boys are (mostly) OK. I've adapted to the 'disability'. Of course I notice your absence every time I wake up, every time I look in the boys' faces, every day when I come home, every night when I go to sleep. But in that practical sense I no longer miss you, and indeed it would be a strange readjustment if you miraculously appeared again now.
               Instead I am left with the absence of you yourself in all your particularity - your voice, gesture, touch and walk, your visions, passions, obsessions and insecurities, your faith, love, loyalty and forgiveness - all that can never be replaced, that is gone forever in this world, that exists now in the memories of those who knew you. More now I find some exact details hard to bring into mind, but when I watch the videos we have, there's a physical shock of recognition. I may well stay single, but even if I find another long-term relationship as good as I had with you, you will never be replaced as a person. In that deeper way, I will always miss you.I hope that's what you wanted.

                  Love,
                              Maritus