My dear Oliver,

As I write this, you are 900 miles away from me being taken off life support. I am heartbroken and devastated. I’m without words right now, but I’m full of every word at the same time. I have no doubt you know how I feel about you, because I know how you feel about me. Our relationship has always been one of openness and honesty – brutal honesty. I love that about you… even when, that one time you pointed out my square ass forehead and how my glasses drew attention TO it instead of enhancing it… I forgave you, because you were right and weren’t being malicious. That ended up being one of our countless jokes.

Ours is a relationship full of laughs, dreams and plans. We are accepting of each other’s faults and we don’t judge about our pasts. That’s how it’s ‘posed’ to be. That goddamn Omarion song, ugh. You made me like him. I can see you singing Omarion to me over Skype. God bless Skype – that made our reconnection earlier this year so much better. You being Dallas and me being in Indianapolis didn’t matter in the least; Skype allowed us feel like we were in the same room. We WERE in the same room.

We met online, on Plenty of Fish. POF has a bad reputation for being horrible, and it is, but sometimes someone special squeaks through. That’s you, for me. We have been talking recently about how you wish we had met earlier in life. I said I didn’t think we would have met or been right for each other at the time. Right now, I’d love a time machine to go back and find out. It would be worth it for one more conversation. One more laugh, one more eye roll and one more “Dubs, I can’t with you right now” as you laugh and shake your head – and you always shake your head at me.

You always call me Dubs, you do love a nickname. We give everyone and everything name, or multiple names in some cases. You name EVERYTHING, you even named your most recent plant Archibald after my grandpa Arch, because you thought it was such a striking name. I loved that so much.

We have this deep, electric connection. Instantly we clicked. I can feel you with me. Since your sister called me to tell me you were in the hospital, I’ve been talking to you. You know that, I could feel you. I can hear your voice in your sister’s voice. Earlier today, she was telling me something your dad said and it was all I could do not to laugh because it sounded exactly like you doing your Big Mike impression.

I am so thankful to have been able to experience you. I will forever be grateful for you taking a chance and emailing me again earlier this year to possibly reestablish our friendship. You were right – I did put it out in the universe that I wanted you back in my life, all you did was respond to what the universe told you to do. We both needed this.

You have always been my great love and will always be my great love. You have this incredible perspective that I appreciate and I always learn something from you. We are fortunate that we learn from each other. I learned so much about myself, love and life in the too short three years we have been connected. The very last text message I got from you, the last line said “I learn something new daily walking this path”. So do I, except now I have to learn them on my own.

I’m so heavy hearted right now. I won’t ever hear you laugh again. I won’t ever see that incredible smile that you thought you needed to fix (you didn’t need to fix a thing) again. We aren’t going to be taking our Texas road trip. There won’t ever be another “Live From the Cloffice – Smitherstein and Dubs” episode.

My heart is heavy, but it’s full of love. I will always love you and will always think of you.

Oliver, you look like 150 pounds and your cheeks look downright plump.

You’re my favorite person,

Dubs