Spoilers: Season 8

Thanksgiving, 2001

Dear Kim,

It has been a year since "that dinner". In some ways, it seems like so much longer than that. Yet, every detail is fresh in my mind, as if it was only last week.

You were so confident in what you believed to be the situation, you joked that our dinner could be considered a date. And I was oblivious of what was going on.

How little I understood. How much I had to learn.

So much has changed since then. I have changed. This letter is not to try to justify my actions, or inactions, of this spring. How I failed you when you needed me most. Or to rehash how you left me hanging. Leaving town without a word to me. Leaving so much unresolved between us.

Part of me will always regret that you and I did not make it. No recriminations, no pointing fingers. Just sadness that it ended as it did. I miss being with you: talking with you, arguing with you, learning from you, making love with you.

I have learned so much about myself since you left. If we were to meet now, I think we would make it. I understand now what you were trying to show me about being a Lesbian, not just being in love with you. After having the time and distance of the last six months, I believe you now understand more of why I behaved the way I did.

You gave me the belief in myself that makes me able to try again. You taught me I was lovable, that I could be loved and love back. Without what happened between us, I would not be able to say: I have met someone.

On the surface, she is so unlike you. Wiry 5'5" to your lanky 5'10". Burnished bronze skin to your European blonde. She wears her fiery passion on her sleeve, while yours burned inside you. But in the things that count, inside, you are so much alike. Like you, she is passionate about what she does. Like you, she cares deeply about those she is called upon to help. Like you, she will not be intimidated by smallminded people and their power.

Like you, she has turned my world upside down. I know you'll find this hard to believe, but... I asked her out. No, it's not proclaiming that I'm a Lesbian in the middle of the ER, but it's something I never imagined myself doing. I'd like to think it is a step forward, small, but a symbol of what the future may hold.

Sandy and I have just begun, and I don't know if it will last. But I know I can try, because of you.

Always,

Kerry