Although we were together only nine short years, it would probably take me another nine years to fully describe the happiness and joy you brought me during that time. By far, the two happiest events of my life occurred during this period, our wedding and the birth of our daughter. No other event comes close. From our wonderful honeymoon tour of New England, to turning our house on that wooded hilltop in Virginia into a home, our life together got off to the kind of start that I had hoped married life would for me. Even through some of our more trying times, we were always together and that's all that was ever important. We will be together again in a place where we will not need to be concerned with pain and disease.

I just can't imagine what life's experience would have been like for me had it not been for you. This world is a better place because you lived here for forty-one years than it would have been had you not. I consider myself a far better person as a result of your influence on me than I would have been had we not met. I recall many of the people who knew us before we were married thought we were so different and therefore incompatible. They could not have been more wrong. I have always felt that our heartbeats were in sync. We were constantly thinking what the other was thinking. We shared the same interests, the same values, and the same outlook on life. When you hurt, I hurt. Words cannot describe the pain I have felt over the last fifteen months. My legacy to you will be to raise Elizabeth to be the kind, caring, and joyful person that her mother was. I will never allow her to forget you.

To my partner in life, my best friend, let me say this is but a brief intermission, for we will be together for all eternity. When compared to eternity, our lifetimes on this earth are but an instant in time. This does not mean. however, that you will not be greatly missed, for you will be more that words can describe. Until we are together again.

I Love You Forever. Tom.