Dear Louann,

I was powerfully missing you this morning. I woke up in this amazing AirBnB on Put-in-Bay, Thinking about the week ahead, and thinking about how I wish you were out here with me. I want to wander around the island with you and run around naked! But you're not here, sadly.

Man, things have changed so much since you died. I mean, SO MUCH. There are THINGS Happening that I think you would marvel at in the same way I do, because we always had that soulmate connection. Can you believe I'm married AND pregnant!? I can only imagine what you'd say about my huge belly. I bet you'd like to feel Smashface kick. I hope there is some version of heaven where you are magically looking down on things and know what's going on, even if I don't know that's happening.

Also, I wonder if you'd appreciate the ways in which I've grown and the things I've discovered about myself. This new diagnosis of autism seems to important lately. When you said I had a "disordered relationship with reality," you were NOT wrong. I know you've since apologized, but I think those words said in the midst of anger held more truth than either of us could've realized at the time.

I wish you were here to share in these things with me. Sometimes, I feel so alone without you. I feel like there is no one who will ever connect with me as you did and will never know me the way you did. I try to work things out with the people I know and sometimes, I just want to be able to talk to you.

But life happens and what are you gonna do? You're not here, and that's just the way it is. But I wish you were here, Louann, I think you'd really like this time in my life.

Love,
Louann