November 30th

Little sweetheart, there's a movie on Netflix, you and I watched it together on DVD when it came out, called A Single Man. I had never seen it again since we watched it together. I remember starting to once and then stopping quite soon. I only remembered that it was very sad, I thought, so that was probably why I stopped.

Tonight I put it on again and I could see why I'd stopped it so soon. The love of a man's life dies in a car accident in the very first scene. I imagine myself, having watched it with you, putting it on alone one night and switching it off right there.

Tonight I kept watching. Incredibly, a placard comes up that says November 30. That also happens to be today.

There was so much that I forgot about the movie but it is really quite beautiful. The man is completely inconsolable but on this day he has come to the decision that he is going to kill himself that night. He lays out all his papers and ID and writes letters to his handful of friends and practices with his gun to see where he will land after he shoots himself. He tries to make it easier for whoever will find him.

Then he goes to work. He's a teacher. He had a way about him knowing that it's his last day that makes him so gentle and good and real with everyone. He says some extraordinary things to his students. Later he talks to a man in a parking lot he might otherwise never have. They look at the sky together. He talks so gently to a little girl who comes up to him, a neighbor. He visits an old friend for dinner. Then he comes home to kill himself but he decides to get a drink first and one of his students who's been worried about him sorta follows him there.

They wind up swimming in the ocean together. Then they go back to his house and talk. He passes out and then goes out to find his student curled up on the couch. With the gun. He was worried about him, so he hid the gun and had put him to bed. He gets the most extraordinary look on his face. He puts the gun away and burns the letters in the fireplace.

Then he opens the door onto the deck and an owl is there that suddenly flies away. As he watches, he sees the moon is enormous and full. He says something about his life being understandable only on these very brief moments of clarity like now when he sees everything is exactly as it should be. How things happen. And suddenly, as he's about to go to bed, he has a heart attack. He falls to the floor. And as he dies, his love comes to him and kisses him.

Little sweetheart, it is all far too much of a coincidence that I have seen this movie tonight. Only for the second time after we first watched it together. And that it is set on this very night. And that it is so very resonate. You are with me, I know. You are telling me things, I know. You are guiding me. This is exactly how I want to go myself - a heart attack - soon and to be with you forever.

Thank you for showing me. Thank you forever. Love you forever. With all my heart and soul.