Closer

Little sweetheart, in the weeks I've been home from the hospital I've only gradually begun to settle in and actually see and remember and lay hands on things as they are.

Part of that is due to some of the endless clutter of this place being shifted a little - by dear dear Sylvia, the earthly angel who has done so much to help me - to clear a path as I, very hobbled at first, in a sling with each leg connected by hoses to a small machine, tried to shuffle about in here.

And partly I think I'm just awakening a bit from the fog of trauma and struggle and can actually take things in, resume, however altered.

A little while ago within these pages, little sweetheart, I mentioned that there were some things I had been thinking and writing about before the incident that I meant both for posting here and for continuing work on our memoir.

Often, as you know, my beloved, I write little things down on scraps of paper. Some are reminders or the shorthand scribble of an idea to develop and expand upon and others are almost mantras - something instantly resonant, seemingly transmitted from the ether and eternity to me in a celestial whisper that I hurriedly scrawl into remembrance and tape to the wall.

It's one of the former kind, a sort of note-to-self for further expounding, that I found while looking for something else on my desk this morning, little sweetheart.

It says "'Where Does the Time Go" awakens me from my nap".

Reading it takes me instantly to the moment I wrote it, pre-incident.

In the late afternoon of an April day before all this, I had laid down to close my eyes for a few minutes, with WFMU on softly in the background. And as I stirred, I heard that song, that wistful lyric and haunting melody, first known to me when you sang it angelically in your room in Boston the weekend I came up while you were working there on your birthday.

In that moment, I caught you gratefully in my arms.

In this one, immortalized by the handwritten note to self, I instantly felt the closeness I did in that moment - knowing that there's more than we can imagine, more than mere coincidence, if only we quiet ourselves and let in the extra sensory, the feelings and thoughts and messages, the sounds and sights (and even the olfactory ones - I more than once have suddenly been aware of your scent filling the air when no one else is around, haven't I, little sweetheart?!) that are there to bolster our faith and let us know, let me know, my beloved is ever with me.

Please help me, my little sweetheart, to find my way again, to find my way anew, as I work to overcome all that's befallen. Please help me with gratitude and love to honor you and know the true way. You're closer than I could ever imagine. Please don't go too far away.

With all my love forever.