with our mutual friend, Dee, we decided on our favorite cafe for brunch. Sometimes we made it in time for breakfast, sometimes we didn't, but there was always fabulous food. (For want of a complaint, I'd say they need a different gin for their gin and tonic. They still haven't changed the brand they order. I check for my own amusement sometimes.)

even after death could answer my question. Or, in some cases, they could, but wouldn't. We slept for a while longer before getting up for showers and the morning ritual of checking emails and forums. (He was and is a moderator on one site, and I was on staff on three sites.) After some discussion in between forums, emails, and chatting

on his skin - along his chest and stomach. He sighed his sigh again and began tracing his fingers along my skin. We made love that morning, something I am infinitely grateful. I often wondered, after I died, if it was merely chance or the fates granting me a beautiful morning to balance out that night, but no one I met

for granted. Beautiful, true, loving, wonderful moments. Without opening his eyes, he caressed my hair and then my face. An echo of a smile graced his lips, and I smiled as well, cuddling closer to him as his arm around me squeezed me gently. I traced my fingernails - only long because I knew he liked the sensation of them

sigh he only sighed when he was experiencing pure pleasure. I smiled and lightly kissed him on the lips. The kind of kiss he teased me about. He called them my "light kisses" only able to be given by people of the light. Even then, among the living, I knew I was experiencing moments I should never take

for him. Staying away from him, lacking his touch and being able to touch him, has been the hardest thing to deal with through this whole time. I touched his face that morning, running my fingertips delicately across the short hairs of his beard. He sighed the low, little sigh I loved so much; he sighed the

also unlike popular belief says, have such a quiet peace in their form, it effects the living essence, taking away the movement - the heat. Given that, I try to stay away from him most times. Unless it's a hot day. Then, I like nothing more than being that cooling breeze which doesn't quite hit his face

ultimate pleasure. So much so, that I have tried to lay next to him in sleep, but it usually disturbs him and makes him shiver. Unlike popular belief, the dead essence/spirit doesn't make one of the living shiver because death is something that makes you actually cold. The living shiver around us because the dead,

that is beside the point. I woke up to the serious yet peaceful face of my fiancé, who didn't have to work that day because of a holiday. To someone who never chanced the dream of being with someone, let alone planning to get married, waking up in someone's arm was always the most

no. I awoke not because of an alarm, but of my own body's natural rhythm. I also awoke to the sweet sight of my fiancé sleeping away. Even now, he looks so serious when he sleeps. However, he doesn't sleep as much or as well as he did when I was alive, but

night person and was most happy to have passed on during the night hours.) Anyway, a "normal" morning that Friday would have been me waking up in the early hours because of my fiancé's alarm clock, and then drifting back to sleep until about nine a.m. when my alarm went off. Alas,

about, but things tend to be different when you're talking about yourself instead of someone else. I would like to say the day started like any other, in true story fashion, but it really didn't. I didn't die in the morning either, which I am infinitely grateful for. (I am a

up in conversation. Most people tend to be made uncomfortable by the subject of death, though, so I don't blame anyone for forgetting. Not that I was completely immune to the subject by any means. I was uncomfortable thinking or talking about the eventual deaths of anyone I truly cared

eventual cause of death, but I suppose "curiosity" is a bit of a broad enough category to not be blamed. I know none of my family, friends, or others who attended my funeral thought of the claim I would happily tell anyone who asked - or if it was brought

a lot of worries off your mind. It gives you a special kind of peace not many people know. I'd been naturally curious all my life - both a good and a terribly bad thing at times. I often found it funny that I was so attracted to the

always knew curiosity would kill me. I always had a knowing that my endless quest to know absolutely everything about everything I had an interest in would lead to my end. Knowing, no matter if anyone believes you know, how you are going to die certainly takes

Of course, the nature of my death wasn't exactly something to pass off and ignore. The nature of my death and the event itself is something I have yet to share, isn't it? I apologize. I tend to ramble like that. As I said before, I

focused on the year and not my age. Funnily enough, that was one of the first things I was a bit miffed about after death. Not that I had died, not the way I had died, but that I had died in an odd year.

unchallenged. So it goes, though. I had a thing about even numbers in life, and I would have been upset to have graduated in 2003 instead of 2004. True, that would have had me graduating at seventeen instead of sixteen, but I was more

living. I did well in school. I was quite shy when I was younger and felt completely unchallenged, so I often asked for more homework. To this day I don't know why they didn't let me skip ahead when I was feeling so

following the living around. They become desperate for any word, any thought, any whisper of their name. I find it said, but I suppose I have fewer reasons to miss that life than they do. Getting back to my days among the

me to determine. If nothing else, death certainly teaches you to care about what people think, less. Of course, there are still those who mourn their days among the living and become obsessed - most of us call them "thought stalkers" - with

any teasing was gentle teasing, like the fond reminiscing between old friends or of an older person fondly recalling the memories of a life truly lived. Had I truly lived in a mere twenty and a half years? That's for

thoughts at my funeral, if I tried hard enough. There was little need, though. My office supplies obsession was a common subject of eulogies. Of all the things to leave behind as a legacy. So it goes. At least

in my face about it. Most were courteous enough to turn away. A mighty few even waited for the times I wasn't around to do so. Little did they know that after death, I could even hear their

but my love for them grew slowly, just like my love for note cards. Yes, I was - and still am a bit, I suppose - an office supplies junkie. At least people had the decency not to laugh

about lacking school supplies because I would just dig in my collection of ten cent notebooks I'd received for that year's birthday. Post-it notes could verge onto the expensive side, depending on what kind you bought,

the letters, if not spell the words, so I was easily pleased with a pencil (crayon, marker, or pen) and a notebook. That certainly made my family happy, and I never had to worry about

bitter. Frankly, it wasn't until I was older that I even learned I'd grown up poor. Such as life, when you finally apply to college. I was a writer since I could properly write

grow up poor, you learn to have an appreciation for things. That is, unless bitterness finds its way into your soul. Thankfully, I just stayed with the appreciation and never learned to be