Michael Lang still wears the silver ring she gave him. On his wrist is a bracelet engraved with one simple word - 'remember'.
A photo frame with pictures of him with Rubina Carmen Wong and a painting of the pair presented to him at her funeral sit in his messy bedroom. Sometimes, as he searches through the mess of letters and belongings in the drawers, one or two pictures showing her beautiful face pop up.
'I smile when I think of her,' he says, eyes red, at the memory of his girlfriend, a 25-year-old Causeway Bay preschool teacher, who was killed when the tsunami smashed ashore on Phi Phi Island last Boxing Day.
Sitting in the Sheung Wan flat he now shares with two Canadian friends, his relative composure stands in contrast to the heartbreaking television images shown last year, when the media trailed him as he fruitlessly searched for Rubina a year ago.
He now calmly recalls bitter-sweet memories - the day she came into his life at the University of British Columbia three years ago, a trip to the Big Buddha, sunbathing on Lamma Island beaches ... and the last sunset they saw before she left him, washed away forever.
But instead of dwelling in misery, Mr Lang, one of dozens of Hong Kong residents left in mourning after the tsunami, has found a way to relieve his pain.
Next month, the 29-year-old will go back to Phuket to help fellow victims of the tsunami through a charity he co-founded in April with Rubina's sister, Iris.