Claire is an incredible woman that relentlessly nagged me back to life at a time when I wanted the entire world to just go away and never trouble me again. She saw something in me that to this day I still haven’t figured out but somehow I made her smile, laugh and feel happiness. I can’t claim to have done that selflessly because her world class nagging talent opened my eyes to so much affection, tender care and love.

Claire has my heart to this very day and I can never imagine that changing even though we’ve been apart for so long. You see, I’m an idiot sometimes and I’m compelled to do the right and reasoned thing. I once did what I thought was the right and reasoned thing in an impossible situation and I hurt Claire deeply. I won’t excuse what I did, I’ve explained it a million times but as I now know reason sometimes has to yield to emotion even if that’s the “wrong” answer.

I should have looked to my idol for inspiration at that time, looked to someone who’s resilience, strength, tenacity had me awestruck – Claire. Life has thrown countless challenges at Claire and she’s taken them all in her stride, she’s still meeting those challenges today and continues to wow me as she does. If I could have been half the person Claire is and fought from the heart as she does then I wouldn’t be writing this, or rather I would be writing it but with Claire peering over my shoulder nagging me not to for her modesty’s sake. But I would still write it if I knew what I now do, that I have to open my heart to the critical gaze of the entire world.

But I’m an idiot and I lost Claire through my silence, I didn’t speak loudly enough to cut through the din of such imperfect lives that we both found ourselves living. I’m an idiot because I let the world push me around rather than take a leaf from Claire’s book and stand my ground even if life was going to knock me down, then I would have got up and laughed at it’s smite as Claire does.

I simply had to write this because as well as being an idiot of the highest order I am also a fool, a fool in love. From the day I warmed her bare feet in my hands as we talked on the sofa. Or the time I lay my world wearied head on her lap and looked up to see her smile of contented happiness as she cared for me and stroked my brow, quieting my most troubling thoughts until I found such inner peace that I had never before known. I swear to this day I felt her soul usher away my past in that moment.

I was loved… Which was quite a coincidence because you’ll never guess what, I loved her too! Something inside me, something I thought had died emerged from the rubble of my past with a stoic “Ahh, that’s better” and a jaunty “No no, I’m still here, not going anywhere old chap” in reply to my quizzical surprise at it’s reappearance. I have no idea why my love sounded like Kenneth More (as Douglas Bader) when it spoke to me, dusting itself off, but it did and still does as it tells me to “Pick yourself up man, straighten up and have another try, she’s such an enchanting creature you mustn’t let her say good bye”.

So I have tried, and tried and tried, and this time I let my feelings talk to Claire but maybe it was too much. Or maybe she has fallen into the seemingly safe but flawed notion of letting reason have it’s say, it was my downfall and it is yet again in a strange mirroring way.

If you know Claire please don’t seek to embarrass or cajole her after reading this, she’s modest and really doesn’t need my feelings waved in her face. I’m writing this because I need to bare my witness to how I feel, I need to file my statement in the vast and permanent record of the world wide web where it will be cached and archived for eternity.

I love you Claire, I have no idea how I will live a lifetime without ever knowing your love again, but I know that with you as my heroine, my idol, my model I’ll find a way. I miss you so much and have done all this time, briefly my yearning was quietened when I thought you’d found true happiness. So what if it wasn’t with me, it was a very close second and just to know that you were loved as you should be was enough.

You changed my life and saved me when you took my hand and led me out of a nightmare and into the sweetest of dreams. Something nudged me from that sweet dream for the briefest moment, how I’ve struggled to find you again in the darkness of this dreamless sleep, this limbo. I dread awakening each morning because in that bright blurry instant of opening my eyes I know the first thing I see won’t be you & that love in your eyes.