"Life is no brief candle... it is a sort of splendid torch...make it burn as brightly as possible..."   George Bernard Shaw

6 June 2005   Lorraine,   I wish this could be a happy birthday for you.  You deserve it.  But I can’t give the gift you really want and need; only time can give you that.   But know that I admire you for the love and devotion you continue to have for Reid and his life.  I suffer in pain with you, and I will struggle with inspired perseverance to see through the tears so that the rest of our years together will be as Reid would have wanted them to be.   Reid’s life was certainly “no brief candle”.  But neither was it simply a torch.  His life was that of a supernova; it burned briefly but did so with a brilliance and spectacle that has left us all breathless and altered.   Without Reid, the world seems to have lost its color.  The color will come back slowly, but painted from a different and elite palette.    As we mark this birthday, remember as I do, that:   Without you, Reid could not have been.  Without you, Reid could not have lived and loved. Without you, Reid could not have touched this world. Without you, Weston could not be all that he is and all that he can be. Without you, I cannot live.   Love, Your Husband.