What is there to say when you have experienced ‘happily ever after’? When the song is done, the stage is cleared, and the players move to other roles? Raven Bond died peacefully on November 21st; we were married for 27 years, and together in spirit before that and forever after. We were married three times, the first by a civil authority, the second in a magical event where we pledged our vows, and one last time on his death-bed. It is not over. It is not done. Love is forever.

“You must have an amazing life, you hear me?” he wrote in his death letter. It was, appropriately, in a file called ‘death letter’ where I could find it easily. “I will be with you forever, even though I don’t have a body,” he said, and “I feel more for you than words can express.”

I feel the same way. He had the gift of unconditional love, and I found myself the recipient of that regard every day. Does that mean he was a saint? No. He was as gloriously flawed, as full of doubts and baggage as any other. His spirit though? That was as brilliant as a star, as courageous, as full of fire and hope and humor.

It is three months since he left the world of form. The body held the spirit so lightly, it was as if he were tethered by will alone. In the last year, we embraced the moments, one by one. We held hands and watched silly movies. We petted the cats. We invented characters and wrote books. Always together.

I traveled around the world to be with him, from Sydney to Seattle so long ago. We kept traveling towards each other all that long while, finding new countries, new worlds in the intersection of our wonderful romance.

I am surrounded by my friends of the heart, by extended family, and by those who called him friend, love, counselor, healer and teacher. He touched so many lives. Wherever he is traveling now, I’m certain he is being and becoming exactly who he is meant to be.

Raven told me a story about time, about being now. He said that if something happened, and that was now, even if that event was a long time ago, then that now is still Now. It comforts me to think that we are meeting for the first time, at Ancient Ways in the heat of summer in 1987; we are holding each other in the kitchen the morning that he died; we are celebrating life on a beach in Hawaii, and in some when, we are meeting and making love in other bodies. We are entangled, and that’s a good thing. We are now.

It is as if he has stepped into another room, yet his spirit lingers with me in between particles, suspended like motes in the glitter of stars, in reflected sunshine, in a dark obsidian mirror. I wrap his cloak around me; it keeps me warm at night.

Having been touched by true love, having lived within it, the embrace lingers.

We will meet and know each other again.

And yes, my love. I will have an amazing life.