Today is six months. Since months since Ailish died.

Six months and one evening ago, Ailish went out with her friend, Janna, to celebrate her birthday the previous week and to chat about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To Boston Pizza, if memory serves. As she always did, Ailish had a wonderful time. Six months ago, Ailish woke up before dawn and gave me sleepy hugs before she jumped in the shower and dozily started her day.

Most days, I would come downstairs to say goodbye to Ailish as she left to work, but that morning, I had had a terrible night of sleep so I didn’t go downstairs. But Ailish stopped by the bedroom before leaving, and gave me another sleepy hug. The last thing we said to each other that morning was our ‘I love yous’. I tried very hard never to leave the house without saying that, as did Ailish.

Three hours later, the doorbell rang and my world shattered.

The winter of 2010 – 2011 was particularly brutal here in Edmonton. It just never seemed to stop snowing, and it didn’t help that the roads weren’t cleared for weeks at a time.

Ailish drove her little 2000 Honda Civic to work most days, while I had my 2000 Chevy Cavalier. Hers was the better car, certainly, but mine had winter tires. And air conditioning, for that matter. The Cavalier quickly became the go-to car for longer trips but Ailish was perfectly happy driving hers to work and back.

Except last winter.

Ailish’s Civic just couldn’t handle the snow we got last winter. It quickly became standard practice for me to start putting on my snow pants while Ailish started her car, just so I could push the little Civic out onto the main street in the early morning darkness. And some days, even that didn’t work. Some days, Ailish just threw her hands up in disgust, and borrowed my Cavalier. Not a big deal as I worked from home all last winter.

After one particularly difficult morning where even the winter tires on the Cavalier didn’t seem to help, Ailish announced that she was not going to suffer through another winter with our cars. By the first snowfall of the next winter, we were getting an SUV. Something with four wheel drive and ground clearance. And winter tires. And it was going to be an import, because domestic cars are crap (even if the Cavalier always managed to get her to work, ahem).

According to the weather forecast, there’s a chance of snow flurries on Tuesday. Today, I took delivery of a Subaru Forester, a crossover/small-suv with lots of ground clearance and all-wheel drive. It was a vehicle Ailish and I had specifically discussed. Ailish wanted a larger SUV (Tribeca or perhaps a Toyota 4Runner), and perhaps we would have gone with one of those, but I preferred something smaller, something with better gas mileage.

It’s a beautiful car, and I miss Ailish like crazy.