All of the times I think about her, I think about holding her hand more often than I think about anything else. It was like we were separate, but when we held hands some circuit was completed and the energy within each of us became our energy instead. There's just something sweet about holding hands.

As a child, we hold our parents' hands, and it makes us feel safe and loved.

As we get a little older and enter grade school, holding hands is that first timid step towards romance, even when we're too young to know what romance is, and would be grossed out if we ever discovered the disgusting truth about what hand holding can lead to.

Older still, and hand holding is often replaced with making out, sex, and all of the other "adult" activities. Holding someone's hand seems to become a burden, an intrusion into our personal space. Besides, it's what kids do.

Then, at the end of our lives, if we're lucky, we find ourselves sitting on a porch with some special person who's shared their life with us, holding hands. It makes us feel safe and loved.

We spend our entire lives reaching out. Every now and then two people will reach out at the same time, and their hands will find each other.

When I think about her, I miss just about everything. But holding her hand, I miss that most of all.