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When I lost Sherlock Holmes to a Swiss waterfall in 1891, the water inside me seemed to dry up from that day going forward. Mary grieved with me, and wept when I could not during the memorial service.
I don't know if there's a term for a waterfall that becomes petrified – where the water is not merely dried up but somehow turned into stone itself – but that is what happened inside me when Mary died from the tumour lurking in her womb that had taunted both of us with a hope of pregnancy until it struck her down just after New Year 1894.
The eighty-six days that followed are a solid black mass in my mind. Then I fainted, and awoke in a world where love conquered death; somewhere inside me a hidden spring trembled.
I did not truly understand that I had been given back a second chance at love until we sealed our vows in a French vineyard, the July sun beating on our bare backs. But my spring was renewed that night when my steadfast friend and new lover held me as I finally wept for my lost wife.
He composed a violin piece in her honour, and he plays it on the anniversary of her death. And when I hear it, again the dam inside me breaks.