Hi Danielle,

You were gone from this world before we ever had a chance to meet.  Your life echoes on in mine however in several ways and I thought it good to write you and say thanks.  

Thanks for the clothes and the climbing harness.  Thanks for the tent, which I have not used yet.  Thanks for being in my friends lives.  You were happy and gracious and with the sadness of your loss often comes a little happy memory of what you were doing, what you would have done, and things you would have said.  Happy things for the most part.  These things I pick up on and they echo in my mind as little parts of your being.

You may be gone but you were such a strong presence in this world that I still feel you.  I feel you when you cause my friend to smile, when you smile back at me from your little framed picture there on the shelf, and when you smile in my dreams. 

Wrapped in your old blanket, wearing your old shorts in a strange house, on a strange bed, I thought it good to say something to you.  To that girl I lost yet never knew. 

Here it is.  My letter to you.    

Thanks.