We’ve gone on without her.  You start to laugh again. You start to plan for events.  You start to live and all the while, in the back of your head, you know that she is still gone.  It’s Thanksgiving and she isn’t here.  I still remember the last time I saw her and think about all the things I could’ve said to her and didn’t because we would see her again.  Except, we didn’t.  Her absence reminds me of how short life is and how trivial my troubles are in comparison to what has occurred.  How does one carry on when something like this has happened?  Life goes on and yet, it seems so strange that it does.

Still, there are no answers.  Nothing to say what happened to her.  I’ve supplied statements to the media, appeared on television, and posted many things about her, and it has been emotionally exhausting to try to continue fighting for her, but fight I will.  The investigation continues and all I can hope for is the truth.  The truth may not be what I want to hear, but it will be found out eventually.  In the end, I hope I have done enough by her to in her death to make up for what I could not do in her life.  There are so many regrets and what ifs and it keeps me up at night thinking about what I could’ve done.  I don’t think about saving her, but I think about how I could’ve gotten to know her better.  In death, regret robs you of all your options, for you can’t take anything back.  She is gone, and so is any future of reconciling my thoughts about her.

And soon, her birthday will pass, as will Christmas and New Years, and she’ll still be gone.  We continue to wait for answers, but I realized we haven’t had a chance to say good-bye.  I’ll be doing that soon privately.  I didn’t get the chance to say that the last time I saw her and no one got the chance to say good-bye.  I want to tell her that we still love and think about her.  I want to tell her that she is not forgotten and that I will continue fighting for her.  I may not have known her as well as I should’ve, but she was my family and I will fight until my last day for my family.  I hope you know that Caitlyn Xiong.  I hope you know.