"What are you passionate about?" It was the first thing she asked me when we finally got talking on our own. Straight through the bullshit to bare bones of your human essence.
The first time I met her, she was the brightest thing in the room. At the Guy Fawkes celebration, her smile was a ceaseless sparkler burning as bright as the bonfire we gathered around. Her affection for life spilling out onto all of us.
Liv is the first person to make me believe in altruism. To make me believe that kindest can be someone's first nature. Life can become so difficult and it is so easy to let these difficulties turn us cold and angry.
As we lay splayed out on the living room floor, arms stretched around the coffee table, closing the distance between us with grazing fingertips, I realize the source of her brightness. She is a brighter reflection of me. Alone we are candles, torches, matches. Together we are a lighthouse, a bonfire. On my worst days, I know that I can look to her and see all the good I have been and all the good I will be. I have a choice to be angry, to hold on to things that have hurt me or to choose kindness and be a reflection of the light in those around me.
Liv leads by example. She strives to live her passion and bring the passion out of others. I remember feeling lost until she took my hand. I knew that I was loved. And Safe. And Whole. That is why I keep living. Because I am loved. Because I love her too much to let her live a life without me.