The cover photo is Villa Migelita Ecolodge the very first time I visited. I had been looking at many properties and I knew immediately when I saw this Villa it was the place I had been waiting to find.

I loved the Italian style look of this old Villa, I loved the wildness and the mountain views. I wanted to live in a climate that had no need for air conditioning. I enjoy the tranquility of my Villa which is now a legal hotel in the rain forest of Colombia. I could see it was just in need of some loving attention. 

The American and Colombian flags fly high

Today Misha would be 29 years old. Yesterday I went to where she is buried in her special garden to talk to her. I don’t do this often because I see her special resting area all the time, and I feel her presence. Today, I felt her drawing me to the garden where a simple angel marks her resting place. The angel was turned on its side. I sat it upright and thought she wanted me to do this. She is around me in her soul presence. When I feel especially sad she sends me a hummingbird, and always the same kind. She sent one on Friday. It is the Long billed hermit hummingbird of Colombia. My housekeeper called me because she found it in my office. Always they enter my office, and always the same species. Misha knows this is my place to write and to watch all of my hummingbirds. The interesting part is this species do not ever use the feeders, I rarely see them from the window of my office: except one comes almost every morning and looks at me through the window for a moment and leaves.

I recently wrote a blog about a time when Misha and I were having problems. All these times seem so long ago. But they exist and need to be written down so that many who were cruel to me during the time of her death know how cruel they actually were. I am writing for my healing.  It is not true that one gets over a death of a beloved person as years pass. It is also not the truth that even if the person who has died did horrible things to you, your love didn’t exist. What is true is you feel confusion about the grief you carry inside for the rest of your life. I still have my memories of all the wonderful times from my life with her, but I have awful memories too. That is why I’m writing these blogs in preparation for the book that I’m writing simultaneously. I want to be clear about how a child that took me to the depths of despair was also one who took me to the heights of love.

Recently I had a dream where she came to me. It has been so long since this has happened. I was back in time, the time when I was preparing for my move to Colombia. I was in her room, and I was boxing things and they were from many years of redecorating her room. Remember, this is a dream and actually the room had been empty of her personal possessions for a long time, but in my dream it was the way her room looked the last time it had been redecorated. I felt deep and unrelenting sadness as I picked up items that brought memories with them. I could see the colors of sheets, the stripes in these floor cushions she had, the curtains that covered her closet. It was all so detailed. Then she appeared and was just watching. Tears were falling from her eyes, and we made eye contact. Her hair was blond like in high school. She gave me her lips together half-smile as the tears fell. Then the tears became snowflakes frozen on her face and I woke up.

As I lay in the darkness on my bed I tried to go back to sleep and to the dream, just to see her again. I wanted to understand why the snowflakes? I understood the tears, as I had them falling down my face when I awoke. She feels badly about how she left this world and me. We had a love that transcended the bad times, a love that was flawed but real. A love that no one can take from me with gossip or lies about the actual reality of our relationship. The reality she knew and the truth of the last years of her life when she changed so dramatically.

The significance of this dream is something I will never know, but I realize she is sad for me. She is also in my sphere of the Universe still. This dream makes me realize that my dream of having a hotel and continuing on with my life as best I can is the best way to deal with such deep rooted memories of another lifetime. A situation I carry inside me. Until I write everything down, I will feel incomplete.

Maybe the snowflakes mean she is frozen in time, somewhat like myself. Even though I have accomplished so much, I continue to transmit to those around me, pieces of myself that Misha shattered and left me to deal with. By writing this on the day she was born 29 years ago, I am committing myself to telling the truth, the good and the bad. The joy that I felt  that day when she entered this world was transcendent, the sadness I felt when she left this world was transcendent.

Her birthday holds more significance than her death day, because she had the world and life before her. She made wrong choices as she grew into her teen years. She left me alone to deal with all of it after she was killed. My way of getting on with my life is certainly controversial to some, and maybe to others quite impressive. Whatever may be in anyone’s minds is not of importance to me. What is important is that Misha didn’t have the chance to grow into the woman she should have become and live her life as a mother, sister, and a daughter. With that I wish her a Happy Birthday and can only hope she is still actually with me, because she came to me in a dream.