ery my little love, First of all, please let me explain ....this letter is long overdue. Time has passed and things have gone on and the world has turned ...all without you here. It is amazing to me really . We talked so much of this time - of how all those you loved would fair when you were not here to cheer us , to listen , to cry with , to laugh with , to sit in a windowsill with, watching the night go by... im so happy i did not tell you only what you wanted to hear back then...im so glad i told you that this time would be hard , and that no amount of planning could take away the pain W/we would feel when you were gone. i was correct. As much as one ever thinks they may have learned about missing someone...each beloved lost, is a new and painful lesson. Though you are far from forgotten and your beautiful spirit, equally far from silent, *smiles* the anniversary of your death strikes me with a quick and sudden pain ,im reminded how very badly i miss you and i feel very clearly how fresh that wound still is. So many things have happened and changed in our lives this last year. im sure you would be pleased with the fruition of things you set in motion long ago thru the many different ways you touched people. The seeds you and your beloved Sir had sown,have somehow made their way to our garden - what a lovely field of flowers it has grown .The work in the Communities ...here and in The Palace is beautiful ....we are so proud to have the help of Your Sir to inspire us , and He has taught us ery.... With great patience, and, when i was involved , maybe a few aspirin *hehe* ,He has taught us those precious things You shared with Him. Those things you so loved to do....To create beauty, ...to paint a picture ...to show others thru sincere feeling ....to share our experiences & views on this Life with great pride and acceptance ...you would have loved ,almost *grins*, every minute of it and of course ...the work goes on. It wont really ever be 'finished' as you well know. The comms have brought many of us close together as Friends  and given many of us a home. The influence of your work with ShiftingWind Sir inspires new people all the time. Thoughts of you are never far away when i work on them, which is difficult for me to imagine in the first place *left eye twitching here ...*.- i can here you in my ear,just as before 'no fury ...not that color ....put some blue or purple ...ohh yes!! seeeee!! now THAT is pretty!!! - still occasionally guiding my hand as i plant the flowerboxes in the window.*smiles* How can it have been a year .....a year.*shakes her head and wipes a tear from her cheek* A year since i said goodnight to you , kissed you once more , spent those last precious moments alone with you . One last little butterfly kiss on your weary cheek ....three hours later your family was looking for Sir. Those days seem like a blur now...one long vigil of songs..., sitting on your bed with you, listening to our music , laughing at your friends' stories about you - listening to the songs you shared with them .... waiting for you to smile or giggle in your sleep ...stick your tongue out at us... anything. Even those sad days were filled with your presence and the joy of you. ..Those first days without you seemed so... very...quiet. How can it be a year my lil sis? i look at moments i have kept safely put away...precious moments when we would laugh till we cried. Wonderful moments ,speaking our most sincere thoughts about our hearts most intimate desires ...in a chatroom with ten other people - Random, brilliant, moments that are so rare these days.. Things often seem so dull here now - so filled with mendacity and needless hurt. Yes the same cruelty and insecurity you always tenaciously stood against lives on in the minds of people who still, just dont 'get it' ... yet, the thought of you popping into every room just to peek around ...to see who was there ..to say 'hello'... willing to be a friend to any one you met ..twirling a lock of that raven hair round your finger as you knelt at the door and smiled ....makes me smile too ...and i wander back down these halls another time, half expecting, to meet you on my ledge. It would have been so easy for me to leave all this behind. i was never much for battles, celibrations always far more my taste *smiles* but you extracted a few promises from me before you left us ...and ive done my best to see them through. - On the whole i think you have spent this last year smiling down on U/us .....W/we are still here - the garden is still in bloom - the Palace can still rip it up like nobody's business. The battles were worth the cause, and the spoils are priceless. No, it isnt the same as before, we always knew that would be true, but you ARE here - you are everywhere i look, your death is proof positive how such a bright light can live on in the people it has touched and loved, how a beautiful spirit filled with love truly does drop a stone into a still pond of apathy, sending ripples of that love to move on for a long while. I am proud of that. Im proud you live on in me. *smiles* These girls here, our 'sissas' as you would say, - how they have come to love you *laughs softly * you know i have been most diligent in giving credit where credit is due *grins* if we had a dollar for everytime they have heard 'ery would have loved this!' or ' this is EXACTLY the kind of thing ery and i talked about!!!' ...well we would all have new computers and dsl ;) - wild , fire, dee , bella , loving, es and many others, have come to these communities - found sisters and the meaning of true sisterhood, sought answers and got them , looked for support and found it. We have stood next to each other thru this last year , held tight to one another thru the storms and waited for the Winds of Fate to blow a cool gentle breeze our way to soothe us. you have been here thru the whole of it. Another thing im very sure of is ...you could not have been more proud of any one of us or our achievments, than you have been of your Beloved Master. He has seen to every promise He made you ery. Everything i was witness to before you died,. He has held up in His strong hands and upon His broad shoulders since. He has proved a Protective and Benevolent Presence. He has brought us all a new sense of quality and a higher standard for what we do here. And He has done it ALL in honor of you. All those things you and i use to discuss,the worries you had for Him about the many trials He would face have indeed come His way and been thrust upon Him one after the other -as well as others we never could have forseen, all in the midst of trying to find His own way along His path without you this last year.... He has faced them well ery- with every bit of integrity, strength and Presence that made you adore Him in the first place. He has cradled your silks in His hands and held close to every vow.  He has been a constant. He has done you proud in so many ways i cannot begin to count. We hold Him in our hearts as best we can now, and hope He is able to find a place of peace where His own, still broken heart, may heal. To love someone the way He loved and loves you is not a gentle or timid thing - you told me this often.- It is a Strong flow of Passion, of Giving , of Surrender- it is Ecstasy, it is Fulfillment, it is the Greatest Gift One can give to another. It surpasses floggings and whippings by leaps and bounds and is far above all lies and broken promises.. it is Everything - equal only to ..the love i know you had for Him. And so ..it is ...i look at the gifts you left us with , the seeds you planted, the lives you touched. The lessons we learned in your passing. i look at the calendar... and i weep for the year. But, when im done weeping , i wash my face (neither of us were pretty crier*winks*),take a breath...and open my eyes - i see the garden in all its incredible beauty - sisters playing amongst the flowers as they tend them, welcoming all who would come here with a sincere heart. bella gingerly stepping into the stream, washing her hands there after she finishes planting the new camillias she has decided to grow- this year, we are even trying some white ones *smiles*.  wild gently fretting over things she knows need to be done and devising a way to ask me for the seventh time without growling *heehee* - i see the Palace in all its Glory, and fire keeping it so well,HardMackin Sir proudly beside her. People waiting at the door when it opens - still the Hottest place in chat, Host to the best scenes, bar always stocked - Authentic and real- and loads of fun. *smiles* - i see Your Sir, as you loved Him - Tall and Strong , keeping all that the Two of Y/you were and dreamed of,present and alive and brilliant. And i smile. I do miss you so my lil sis- your flowers still thrive in my backyard....yes, the pink ones do look better next to the yellow ones, you were right *smiles* i give you your props everytime they bloom. im learning to 'see' you when youre here. Coming to expect a 'feel' of you when im troubled and this gives me great comfort. i apologize for trying to ignore you for that little while - how dare i try to dismiss your presence like that !! - *smiles* Silly sissa, bad fury!- i was wrong- es will copy and paste this sentence a thousand times, she has the right to, she did in fact 'tell me so' *smiles bigger*... The wounds of losing you will heal im sure . but im not putting any deadline on when- ive grown accustomed to the ache of your abscence, it is the familiar scent of you that soothes me at times like this - And in the meantime, ill wander the Garden when i miss you most, where i can hear your whispers -i'll climb down my trellis and grab your hand tightly as we run thru the wildflowers. we'll sing our songs there, curl our toes in the cool grass, lie back and spread our hair out behind us & watch the clouds go by. ill see you there soon. i love you ery. Dream sweet. yours always, fury