End of August

 Little sweetheart, tonight is the last night of August and I can feel the seasons changing. It’s cooler and the air feels fresh while still the sounds of locusts fill the air and the lushness of the season remains.

Tonight I walked out along the Hudson and just gazed over the beautiful landscape and skyscape.

I remembered how I often used to walk out here in the years before we met and wonder if things would ever get better, I was so very very sad. They did. You found me.

Now, in these days when things are so very wrong, even in the depths of anxiety and despair, I know that it will get better because you are closer than I can imagine. And I will be with you soon.

I love you so very much. Please be near me, I love you forever.

Kissed in Dreams

 You were in any dreams last night, little sweetheart!

I didn't remember it all, and it was one of those that is swirling and changes locations and times and characters, but there you were - with me. And the best part was this wonderful moment together.

We were in front of a mirror, pulled close together on our way somewhere back into the atmosphere of the dream, and you kissed me deeply and told me how very much you loved me.

Oh my goodness! Thank you! I needed so very much to have you visit and comfort me. It always makes me feel better, and that I’m on the right track. Thank you thank you thank you.

New Schedule

 Little sweetheart, all through these difficult months of the pandemic I’ve fallen into bad sleep habits. Waking far too late in the day and feeling rough.

Just now, I feel a change. I’m up earlier, at our usual time - remember, we always liked getting up around ten? I know that’s the right path and that you’re taking me there. The album is nearly done. I’m turning full attention to the book. You’re helping me through every step every day.

God, how I love you! Thank you, my little sweetheart. Forward!  

The Saddest Person Ever

 Little sweetheart, when I was working on the last play I wrote for you, the last play I ever worked on, really, in 2013, a little while after your tragic passing, I was in Upstate Washington State, on retreat with the company and cast before our production of of My Before & After. It was ten days in a lovely little arts colony in the mountains.

One day, I was in there little cafe having coffee with the lead actor, a lovely man named Tim. As so often happened my thoughts were of you and I burst into tears. He was very kind but he also said to me, quite worried, that he thought I was the saddest person he ever had known.

I still am. I try hard to do my work and be kind and say our quiet prayers, but often the darkness descends, my love. And I need to say that. I need to live within it and let it be part of me as you are always a part of me, the biggest part, the very best part, and just quietly ask to feel you near me. I know it’s okay to feel this bad. I know because you loved and still did love me and that we are forever.

Thank you, my little sweetheart. Always. Always.

Butterfly Kisses

 Little sweetheart, butterflies so very much like the sweetest little birds that bless us, always bring you to my mind.

From your perch in The Forever, I don’t know if you know, but one of the most wonderful and best known of the species, the Monarch, is in terrible danger. It’s partly to do with climate change. Your mom and I are both terribly concerned about them becoming extinct. They love milkweed and your mom especially planted that herb both in Davis and down in Turlock.

But just like that incredible sighting of those cardinals, little sweetheart, I’ve been seeing monarchs! Usually up around the 91st Street Gardens in Riverside Park. And the last few times I have, just over this week and today, one or even two have flown so close to me, right up to my face, it’s almost if they were trying to give me a little kiss. And I know that is from you!

Oh, my true true love! Thank you! I know you’re trying your best to help and guide me all the time, and moments like this just bring it all home to me so very much. Thank you, little sweetheart. I love you with all my heart and soul forever. Forever!

Bird Watch

Little sweetheart, I've been seeing more and more birds these last few months. 

I think maybe the reduction in air traffic has been a boon for them. A couple of weeks ago I saw a cardinal. I always thought of cardinals as winter birds and regardless of the season, I'd never seen a cardinal in the city. The first time was over by the dog run in Riverside Park near the 86th Street Gardens. I was so excited, I stopped a random passerby just to tell her. Maybe a week later, I saw another, or perhaps the same one, at the drinking fountain by the playground at the W83rd entrance. Then, a week after that, I saw two! 

I was crossing through that little common square between four apartment buildings just north of Lincoln Center, that kind of "quad" between Amsterdam and West End, and I heard a bird singing just spectacularly. I looked up and it was a cardinal, a male like the other(s) I had seen up in the W80's, but then I saw the object of his affection - a female cardinal, her colors more muted and grey but still with red highlights. 

Every time I pass any of these spots, now, I look for them. Since your ascension, little sweetheart, I often find comfort in birdsong and the sighting of the little guys. I feel a sense of closeness to you somehow. 

I think I told you in these very pages that story about how a few years ago, I went out into the hall and was startled to find the prettiest little bird, a finch, I think, sitting quite calmly, like a sentinel, atop the crash bar of the emergency exit to the roof. It turns out he'd escaped from Angelo's apartment on the second floor - he has several little birds and often lets them of out their cages to fly around his apartment at will! Somehow, this little guy got loose and flew to the highest point he could find indoors. Before we knew who he belonged to, my neighbor Eric rescued him and then got a little birdcage and gave him to me, because he has a cat that would be far too curious. I had the little guy for about a day until we discovered that he belonged to Angelo and I took him in his cage back downstairs to his home. 

But before I did, that night when we still didn't know where he belonged and I had him for safe keeping, I fed him and gave him water and talked to him and showed him your picture - I told him all about you, how much I love you and how we all miss you so very much and that this is your home, so that he would know. I wanted this little bird to know about you. 

It seemed very important, little sweetheart. And it feels very nice today, on this rainy Sunday afternoon, to remember it all. How I love you! Forever. Forever.