...a lot lately is one of the two women named Lucy from my past. Both are long dead and both shaped me in ways I'm still coming to realize, thirty and (many) more years on. My old love Lucy from Lake Charles, how I miss you. I wonder often what you'd look like now at 55, probably still slaying the boys who will never know just how truly charming you really are. You were spared the slide in to middle age that mars us all and only improves a few, but you certainly hadn't come close to reaching your potential in all ways save setting the twilight existence I was living before you found me ablaze. I know no words to begin to express my debt to you, for the magical times by your side and all of the lessons you wove into the fabric of my life that still comfort me and come clearer year by year when I reflect on them. I was, like most I'm sure, unworthy of your generosity of mind, body and spirit but you knew it then as I did not. I miss you and sometimes yearn for you but I do not mourn you ever, because you would despise that and also because you lived a magnificent existence to the utmost. I'm just touched and a little teary that I had the chance to share some of your time and that you chose to share some of it with me. Love always.