Thankfulness...

I was on the train this morning, little sweetheart. I've been narrating an audiobook this week and the sessions are at recording studios out in Newark, so everyday I've been up early and out to Penn Station to catch NJ Transit. It's been different getting up at that hour and it makes me go to bed earlier too, which isn't at all an entirely bad thing.

I remember how you loved sleeping and especially sleeping late. 10am was your preferred "early" wake time and I came to love that too. I'd been used to getting up a bit earlier to run in the mornings but found it impossible, indeed foolhardy, to leave bed if you were wrapped around me, your little ankles locked around mine, your head on my shoulder, your hand in mine. Waking with you was one of the best feelings in my life. As waking now without you is among the most continuously traumatic- it's like waking to tragic news each day.

Mornings are hard, my love. But today as I found a seat on the mostly empty early train (mostly empty because it's a reverse commute - most people at that hour are coming into the city not leaving) I thought of you, thought of the dream I had of you my last night in your bed at the family house this last Christmas holiday, that dream of you and I together and you telling me that we should "make a list of all the people we need to forgive".

I thought of that as I sat there watching the industrial landscape go by and I imagined you telling me to think of the things that I had this week to be thankful for. I thought of the book, that I was going to a job I liked, narrating an audiobook and how much you'd like to hear it when it's done, how you'd like to be sitting right there (and probably are) as I read aloud. I thought about how the band has been getting air play on both Irene Trudel's show and, this week, also on Liz Berg's program - both on WFMU. How that was such a dream of ours and that now it's happening - and with increasing regularity.

Those are both things to very thankful for, my sweetheart. You're absolutely right, as always. And also, maybe foremost, my love, I'm thankful for the lovely little Wednesday night candlelight Taize service at the beautiful little church on West End and 77th. The people there are so nice and thoughtful and kind. And I love that hour of mindfulness where I can be quiet and think and sing and pray for you. And last night afterwards, that nice young woman minister I told you about, Jes, came up and hugged me. And so did the nice choral director, Cynthia. And as I left, one more woman said to me that it was so nice to hear your name, my love - because I say it at that point in the service when we're invited to name either silently or aloud the people we wish to send prayers for.  I thanked the nice woman (I wanted to ask her name!) and said that you are always with me and she replied "I know that she is".

You are, my little sweetheart. My heart is so full of love for you. You reside there. Always, sweetheart. Please always be with me.