The Last Day of October

Little sweetheart, surely Christmas was your favorite holiday - you always spent it with your wonderful family and included me once we'd met and it was always glorious and fun. But I think a close second for you as a favorite was Halloween. 

For different reasons, of course, since they are vastly different occasions - just for a start Christmas spreading out over days if not a week and Halloween coning down to single night in October (just two weeks away from your birthday). 

What I think you liked most about Halloween was its theatricality. You weren't much of a horror film buff or anything but you loved the idea of costumes and fancy dress. And candy! Ha! You loved candy! There was something so very childlike - in the most charming way - about your continued love of the holiday. 

I'd kind of lost sight of it until we met. I wasn't much of one for parties or the parade (quite a famous and altogether fabulous one here in New York, downtown in The Village). But in 2008 I happened to be in LA. Old DC friends - they'd actually gone to ACT - had a theatre company there called The Road and they were doing two of my plays - Real Real Gone and Seven Pages Unsigned - in a twin bill. You would've been there too except that you were doing Rock n Roll at ACT and about to transfer the production to Boston's Huntington Theatre (where I would join you just before your birthday). 

You were packing up and flying to Boston just before I was finishing up in LA. My friends lived in Van Nuys so the airport in Burbank was closer and easier to travel to than LAX so that's where I departed from. It was October 31 - Halloween. When I arrived just before my fight, all the attendants were in costume and passing out candy - the atmosphere giddy and light. I couldn't wait to tell you about it and it was then that I truly wondered when on earth did I go off of Halloween? It was delightful! 

I needed you to show me. I needed you for so many things, little sweetheart. You brought such light and joy into my life. It's hard sometimes now to find it but if I think of you as you were and don't fall into despair over your absence, I do. I do find the joy that you shared with me. 

Happy Halloween, little sweetheart!