In (more) Dreams!

Little sweetheart, I've been flat on my back for most of a week and am just now beginning to feel more myself. I think there's something going around. Your mom told me that the day after we left, she came down with something herself. Anyway, I'm feeling much better and even went for a run both yesterday and just now.

It was so wonderful to wake this morning, little sweetheart, because you were in my dreams last night. We were traveling together, you and I, in one car and your folks in another, meeting up with them somewhere along the coast, I think. It seemed to have a kind of commonality with that trip I just took with Sylvia last year along the PCH.

Something about it also reminded me that I have these recurring dreams that I've gone on a trip, sometimes with you, sometimes on my own, and forgotten to return the rental car! Like in the dream I'll be all the way home maybe even months later and suddenly remember that I parked the rental car somewhere and forgot to take it back to its place of origin. Isn't that odd, little sweetheart?

The kind of wonderful thing about this dream last night, little sweetheart, was its sort of complete normality. Nothing was crazy dramatic or out of place about it. Most of the details of it were kind of mundane. An alert came up on the dashboard that one of the tires was low on air and you looked up the nearest place to go on your phone as we drove along. We stopped and took care of it and the people at the service station wanted to know if we'd like to stay there at their adjoining motor lodge for the night but we were heading on to a different place that your dad had already booked, so we thanked them and got back in the car. We somehow got to the place before your folks arrived, even through we'd had to stop to inflate the tires. We parked and then before we even got out the car decided to park somewhere else so that we wouldn't block in your dad's car when they arrived.

It was all so perfectly without drama or conflict - just a nice day in our shared life together and that itself is magic because you are magic yourself. Every moment with you was and is a treasure. I love so very much, little sweetheart and always always will.

Thank you for finding me in dreams. Please remain near me today and take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.

Return

Returned home, little sweetheart, I’ve picked up the week’s worth of mail that was held while we were out visiting your folks and there was a wonderful card from your childhood friend, Liz.

Liz first got in touch with me two years ago, almost exactly when I got hit by the car. Indeed, I read her first emails to me from my hospital bed. In the time intervening she’s sent me some lovely missives - memories of you as little girls together, and illustrations she’s drawn of some of the stories.

Today, when I opened the envelope, there was a beautiful holiday card she’d made with a drawing of you and I on it! It’s based on a photo from our album Of Love and Loss. It’s just lovely and I have it here by the desk. What a wonderful thing to come home to - memories of you!

With all my love…

Through The Darkness

It’s something of a dark day today, little sweetheart. Between today and the 19th next week are the days when both my father and our friend Curt died.

Their anniversaries come around each year so close to one another and I’m reminded how I’ve read that, even this personal history notwithstanding, these late weeks of January post-holidays are the darkest and most dispiriting for many many people. Somehow, they weigh on us more and it’s harder to find and embrace the light, the hope and faith that we need to sustain us and keep us going.

So, my little sweetheart, mindful of that I ask… please be near me, won’t you? I so need your presence and guidance. Help me keep my head up and do our work with vigor and love. As you ever do.

So grateful, always…

Westward

Good morning my little sweetheart. Heading Westward to see your folks tonight. The flight is a bit earlier than usual. It’s the one direct flight each day to SMF.

I’m so looking forward to see your folks - Sylvia is, too. And I’ll come up to the Angel in Davis, probably tomorrow, and sit there - where I know you are not tethered but merely alight to comfort and guide me - to talk and listen for you.

I’m such a homebody these days, my little sweetheart. I’m very anxious and resistant to even leaving the house. Maybe I always was a bit. I certainly liked to just stay in with you, didn’t I, always?

There’s something both wonderful and bittersweet about getting on planes, my little sweetheart, and even the subway and AirTrain journey to JFK - it reminds me so of coming to see you and how you would be too excited to sleep the night before and not in the least abashed or cool about telling me so. Waking up before sunrise, I’d already have messages from you excited to meet me in a few hours.

May it be again and ever so. Let me fly to you where you are and be in your arms forever.

With all my love…

An New Year

Here we are (as your mom says), little sweetheart - it’s both a New Year and a new decade.

Cold and crisp outside, I headed out for a run this morning. The air felt clear and it seemed very fitting.

May I do better this year, little sweetheart. May I always, increasingly find ways to be kind, to emulate the goodness that you so purely exemplify. May I look to you for guidance and example, and do our work, bring it to fruition, honor and conjure you.

Time, I know, little sweetheart, isn’t at what I think and feel it is just now, merely mortal. I know we, I know you are forever and all at once. And that I must just do the best that I can until I can rejoin you.

Please be near me, won't you, my little sweetheart? Strengthen my faith, strengthen my resolve. And take me to you the moment Heaven will allow.

With all my love on this first day of a brand new year.