I start to freak out every year as the anniversary of your death approaches — and then I miss the actual day. Usually I remember a few weeks later, just before your birthday, but this year I missed that, too. I’d suggest that after 23 years the blow has softened, but really, I know that’s not true. I miss you now and always.

I could have done more.
I didn’t know.
Don was right.

1995: I returned to the office after my grandfather’s funeral and found the messages. Who leaves a voice mail at the office telling you a friend has died? My friends do.

“Mr. Daniels moved to Baltimore sometime around 1987.” Our life together, our love, reduced to one factual statement that doesn’t even include reference to me. It feels like my grief has somehow lost legitimacy.

I read the obituary and cry – now it seems final, now it seems real. I’m desperate for context, wanting to grieve with others who knew him, who knew us.

Andy seems so distant. Am I the only one who has forgotten our grievances, allowed time to heal? I cry all the time, trying to hide it from Stewart, who doesn’t understand and would be angry if he did.

Craig and I met in early 1987 and went on our first date on Valentine’s Day. We were young and happy. We moved into a big house in Patterson Park with Andy-now-Andrew as our roommate. I loved that house, exposed brick and huge kitchen, patios, library, rose garden and all.

From Feb 1987 to Feb 1988 I fell in love; moved in with my first serious boyfriend; watched a dear friend painfully lose sanity and even more painfully commit suicide; was stalked by an ex-co-worker; got pregnant; had an abortion; worked my first ‘real’ job; left my first serious boyfriend; and moved to New York.

He was going to leave me anyway – each of our reactions to my pregnancy terrified the other. An ardent feminist with a long volunteer resume of clinic defense, I felt that I really did have a choice. Here I was, with a secure job, health insurance, a house whose landlord was open to rent-to-buy options, and most importantly, in a committed and monogamous relationship with a man I loved. I thought it was careless and irresponsible not to consider the options before making a decision.

He thought I was nuts. He had no intention of raising a child, settling down or even discussing the issue. Afterwards – after the days and weeks of tears, accusations (“I’m not forcing you into anything, I’m just not going to play any part in it”), after I’d insisted on general anesthesia because I couldn’t face what I was doing – after it was all over, and we’d settled into a relative, uneasy calm, he said maybe we should back off the relationship a little. Not break up, maybe just get separate apartments.

He decided to have this discussion the same day my boss announced that he was selling the business and taking a select few colleagues to New York to start a new publication.

Craig went out to run an errand and I picked up the phone to call Russ. I still remember how terrified I was to call (what if he didn’t want me?). I’m still surprised I actually did it. But by the time Craig returned, I had accepted a position in New York, details to be discussed over drinks that evening.

And that was, effectively, the end of my life with Craig. In the weeks that followed, I got busy with details of the move and began the process of distancing myself from him.

I look at the photos Andy sent me, and I’m reminded of how much I loved him. But the surprisingly bitter sense of loss is accompanied by an equally bitter sense of disappointment – a reminder of a man who let me down.

He is eulogized for his charm, quirkiness, imagination and humor, for tiring of assignments that paid the bills, for taking risks in his career.

While we cry, while we remember, while we grieve, let’s not forget the price paid for those talents. Childlike and unwilling to accept responsibility: he is eulogized for the same qualities I left him for.

We don’t honor our dead by lying about them. I’m angry – I am reminded of a hurt I thought was long past, and angry at no longer having a man to blame – just a memory, and that hardly seems fair.