Erica...

Imagine if you could freeze a moment in time. Perhaps it’s just the one single instant of life that you can look at and say to yourself that this life was worth living. Do I have any of those moments? I think we all do, but mine is special.

I can see it now; my moment in time. She was there, nodding her head to the tune of Hotel California – such a lovely place. Such a lovely face. She had her eyes closed as the wind blew back her dark hair shining silvery in that full moon of late September. The Eagles were one thing we shared. The power of Don Henley’s voice and the magic of Joe Walsh’s guitar just empowered us, but it was young, stupid love.

The Beatles would say: Love is all you need, but looking back at it all, somewhere along the way love is all we lost. Where had we gone wrong in the space of that moment to now?

That night, she kissed me. It wasn’t one of those young lovers’ kisses. No. It was the kiss of someone who betrothed herself to a future bright and filled with possibility, which was really all we had. We had not a single dollar in our wallets, nor a nice car, but we had possibility. We had each other.

What was she thinking about just then, when that legendary twin guitar solo filled my car with the spirit of music and love? I’ll never really know, but I’d like to think that I was in her thoughts. As she wrapped her arms around my neck, the kiss of cold steel studs on her black leather wristbands caressed my skin and sent a shiver down my spine.

“We shall not be moved,” she whispered in my ear as she traced that chilling trail of ice down my back with her fingernail clad in polished black.

She was wrong, but in that moment, we had no idea. All we knew was us, and that was all that mattered. It was the pangs of young love; sharp and beautiful like the artist’s needle, and filled with intoxicating lust like the addict’s vice. It was everything we ever needed.

My girl in black, she was. My raver, and my Venus. I never knew what went on inside her head, but I loved the unknown in her. I loved the unfair in her. I loved her. She was more than just the girl who could bang her head to Megadeth and snap her fingers to Eddie Money. She was the one and only Erica, and wherever she went, I would follow.

She was my Black Magic Woman, and my Love Potion Number 9. She was also my Cyanide, and though it tasted oh so sweet, it was poison. I recall an Alice Cooper song of similar magnificence, but there’s no beauty in lost love, there’s only heartache. My girl in black; gone and ne’er to return.

I left her there that cold morning… a wall of six feet now between us. A humble engraving on her lonesome stone was but little more than words – words which could never tell the story of my Venus.

Erica… September 17th, 1989 – September 18th 2009.

Time. That’s all she was to everyone but me, but she was gone now. The rhythm of her finger snapping but a distant memory among the chaos of lost love and what ifs. Never again would I feel the silk black of her hair, or trace the lines of her tattoos on her back. Never again would I hear that whisper.

We shall not be moved.

She was wrong. One of us had moved on, and though this earth is a lesser place without her, heaven found itself brighter that morning. I can’t feel her anymore, but I still hear that whisper from time to time. Even as I write this, she speaks those words to me, and the pangs of young love stab my cheeks like knives as the tears roll down. I look at my life now, and I have no real regrets. My daughter sits with me now, and her mother brightens my day… none of them will ever know. No one would ever know of my girl in black.

I gotta travel on, I hear myself say, but can I? There are some parts that implore me to forget, but I can’t. I won’t betray my Venus – I just can’t. If she only knew how I felt. If I could only tell her one last time that I would have married her… Had I the money that time, I’d be a widower. Instead, I’m a lost love like so many others.

Wherever you may be now, I can only hope that you remember that moment. I hope you can still hear those voices calling from far away. My Erica, wherever you are, I want you to know that you were my Hotel California. You woke me up in the middle of the night for years, but no one will ever know.

There is no more painful a thing than a love lost, not by mistake or by the shattering of a lustful relationship, but by untimely demise. Gone at twenty and a day you were. Too young – too early. Your memory is all I have left. Your moment is all I have left, and someday when I’m too old to know my own name, I still hope to cling to the frayed ends of that late September night. You turned twenty at midnight, and you died three hours later in our bed.

You made me a better person. That morning, I set aside the life of addiction and pursued a brighter path, but it was one without my girl in black. If only it would have been me… If only I had one last chance to change things.

Life often steals away our choices, but I choose to love you, Erica. Forever...