I miss you most at night in summer, when stars stretch out forever and the wind blows lonely off the Rockies. Sometimes the moonlight is so bright I can make out the mountains - the lower slopes carpeted green with pine, and the jagged peaks thrust toward heaven, mottled gray and white with rock and lingering snow.

Even in summer, Colorado nights can be cold, with air like chilled wine and silence so thick I feel I could reach out and grab handfuls of it. It’s then, when my breath hangs in foggy clouds around my face, when I am alone, that I miss you most.

It’s then that I remember how long it’s been since I saw you last. How far away I am - millions of miles - from the place we called home for one short, perfect year.

I miss you in springtime too, when birds begin to sing and rivers rush icy down off the slopes and flowers timidly poke their heads up from the ice. I miss you in winter, when big fluffy snowflakes drift down and children sled and build snowmen until their cheeks are bright from the icy air. I will always wonder what you would have thought of snow.

I miss you in autumn, too, when aspens splash vivid yellow streaks across mountainsides and drop their fluttering leaves to carpet emerald meadows. I wonder what you would have thought of so many trees in one place.

But I still miss you most on clear summer nights, when silence falls and you are so far away. I miss you most when I can see a billion stars, your world not among them - not even a pinprick of light in the cobalt skies over Colorado to assure me you weren’t just a dream.