Today is March 3, 2022, and I'm missing you and loving you just as much as the day you died three years ago.  There is a deep hole in my whole being.   But I am coping, going on, doing things, laughing, playing cards, and I'm content.  I'm content because I consider myself to have been so lucky and so loved by you for 17 years.  We shared everything -- gardening, decorating, cooking, grocery shopping, and our love for the people in our lives. I cherish your relatives, Elaine, Patty, Dee, Doris, and all of your aunts and cousins that accepted me right away as family.  I remember the garden that you dug for me right next to the house when it became difficult for me to get around.  I remember cooking together, the Thanksgiving turkey, the Valentine's Day steak and lobster dinners, the Christmas roast beef and all the grilling we did on summer evenings.  What a great time we had in the summer, eating dinner on the patio with a glass of wine.  Our pond and waterfall right there with the beautiful plants and flowers, all work we did together.  I look around now, without you being here, and still see you here.  The furniture you brought to our home, your books, the beautiful dishes and then sometimes I find a piece that you mended.  That's when my heart breaks and I cry.  What a beautiful man, what a beautiful human being I had beside me for 17 years.   Thank you honey

I can't believe it is 2 years since the passing of my beloved cousin. We as cousins had a wonderful relationship, Ralph loved me as I loved him. He was such a hard working man, but it wasn't work to Ralph it was his passion to plant his vegetable garden and enjouy and share the fruits of his labor. If he called on the phone for something at the end of the call he always said thanks for calling Elaine!! He was always a jokester which is why I loved him, he found humor in everything. I can't say that life was a joke because it wasn't, he just made the best of life. Ralph could whip up the best salad you ever ate, I don't believe anyone can duplicate his wonderful salad!
You are always in my prayers, in my thoughts and always with love in my heart
Love Elaine 

This is the second anniversary of Ralph's death.  I didn't sleep much at all last night thinking about him --- all wonderful memories.  I hadn't seen Ralph since 1961, and we met again 40 years later.  We found that we had moved separately in the same direction over that 40-year span.  We both loved gardening and cooking and shared the same ideas about religion and politics.  I found that we were very much alike in our vision of how we looked at our surroundings and how we loved our families and friends.  It was a mystical  and spiritual experience to be in love with Ralph for the short 17 years we had together.  We always knew we had each other to share and enjoy everything --- from traveling, to planting our flowers, to planning and executing our design for the backyard with its waterfall and pool and the patio surround.  Ralph pretty much knew how to do all things and to do them well.  He knew how to love me.  We were always laughing together and he brought me great joy.   Ours was an amazing love story, and it still isn't over.  I don't think that much happens that I don't think of how we once did it together.