A friend's dream of us, my sweetheart...

Here's what my friend emailed, my darling - a dream she had in which you came to us, to me, and we were together:

"...You and I had rooms in a hotel - a cheapish two-level off the freeway type of way station with a small pool. It felt like a way station in life. Summer was alive, she came down "from where she was" to visit you, you hung out together, I only saw you guys before you went to bed and when she was packing to leave again the next morning. She and I shook hands again, you guys had a last quick tumble in the few moments before she left and you were quite euphoric afterwards, smiling, full of life, hugging strangers, rolling around on the ground. You felt grounded and safe and calm again. There was more to the dream that had to do with me and the pool - but that was the part about you and Summer..."

Where the time goes...

Sweetheart, I was making a note to myself to find the email that my friend sent me quite a while ago about a dream she had where you and I were together. I found it and am going to post it in a minute. But I also wanted to post what I wrote as I was making the note to myself, my love. Here it is:

...And the thought that remembering suddenly an anecdote, an outing, a look, something Summer said - anything like that is the most incredible kind of blessing, and a reminder to me, that even if I'll never truly know happiness again, there are these blessings of potent memory so powerful they have a palpable sensory quality to them - I can almost touch our life. And faith that someday I will crawl through that pinhole of consciousness, slipping free, emerging through revolving glass doors – don’t push or touch them, let them turn as they will – emerging into bright daylight, the air familiar, Summer approaching behind the wheel of her banged-up blue Prius (“But your Dad sold that after you…” I begin to say, not yet understanding) to collect me, running to her before she’s even fully pulled to the curb (“Are we at SFO?” I wonder, my mind literally blowing), pulling her to me, my sweetheart in her little blue anchor t-shirt and black yoga pants, her gorgeous red tresses atop her head, knotted through a pencil (“I’m famous for this…”, she said the first time I saw her doing it), letting me take her in my arms, hoisting her off her feet (“I forgot how light you are”, I blurt out, stupidly, “but not how your hands feel on my neck. I…”) and begin to weep. “Shh,” she says, “it’s okay, now. I’ve so much to tell you! Remember that song I used to sing, 'where does the time go'? Well…”  And I’m with her, I’m there with her, all restored, all resumed, again and forever. That is time. Time. All unknowable...

Hear Our Prayer...

There’s a little church on W.78^th St, sweetheart, that I’ve been walking by for over a year, looking at their calendar of events and thinking about going inside. Finally, last night, I went to a Taize’ service there. It’s a candlelight service where people sing little chants – short phrases repeated like rounds. There are readings. There was a reading from the New Testament and a poem by Sylvia Plath. At its center is a silent meditation of about 10 or 15 minutes. The lights, already low, are dimmed further and the candlelight really becomes the main source of illumination. There were musicians also. Piano, flute and… something else (funny that I’ve forgotten). At the very end is a short benediction. Just before the meditation, while one of the chants – most are in Latin but this one is in English – repeats the words “Lord, hear my prayer” over and over, people are invited to come to the altar, light a candle, their back to the congregation, and offer their own prayer. So, I did. I was actually the very last person to go. I walked up and lit a candle and standing there I said the prayer I always say for you, my little sweetheart, for us. You know the one. I ask God to please look after you and to keep you safe and to let me be with you again forever and ever in our love in the Beautiful New Place. And I cried and cried, my little sweetheart. I cried, my love, as I stood there speaking our prayer, and after as I walked back to my seat. I cried and cried, my gorgeous girl, and I rested my head on the seat in front of me, weeping well into the meditation, which came next. And after the benediction, as I bundled up for the cold walk home, I was so tired, my little sweetheart. I think crying that hard tires me out sometimes, my love. I walked home and settled into the sofa where you and I would often end our day together. I settled into the sofa where I used to hold you and kiss you and give you a little foot massage as we watched a movie or something together. That tradition that you told me was so important to you – watching a story together, with your partner, at the end of the day. I settled into the sofa alone watching a movie by myself, so very tired, until I finally turned everything off and lay down on our bed and said our prayer again before falling into sleep. I said our prayer again and hoped, as I do every night, not to wake in the morning in this lonely world, but to open my eyes and find you in the next one, in The Beautiful New Place where I will finally be with you again and forever. I love you, Summer. I love you, my little sweetheart. With all my heart and soul I do. Forever and ever. And I long to wake up where you are. I’m so very lonely here without you. Please come for me, won’t you? I’ll say our prayer aloud. I love you, my sweetheart. I love you so.   

To forgive...

I woke up this morning in your bed, little sweetheart. I’m in your pretty room at the house on Richland Road on my last day in NorCal over the Christmas holidays. I awoke in your bed with my pictures of you at my side on the nightstand and your side of the covers undisturbed, ready, as ever, for you to turn them down and collect me in your arms in my sleep and take me with you forever to live in our love in the beautiful someplace else. And as the warm California breeze and birdsong awoke me this day, I remembered I’d just been dreaming of you, my darling girl. We were together and you were taking up paper and pen and saying to me, “let’s make a list of all the people we need to forgive”. Oh, my sweetheart! You know everything! You know me so well, my love, don’t you? You feel my hurt and my ache and my desperate loneliness. And you try so hard to come to me and help me from your slight but significant remove to the other side of consciousness. Yes, my little sweetheart. Let’s make that list. It’s a wonderful way to begin this New Year, my love, my gracious, gentle, compassionate soulmate. Yes, Summer, let’s draw it right up and let forgiveness, even of ourselves, commence this nascent season. Let us do exactly that. Thank you, baby. And please, always be with me. Always. Don’t go too far away...

Full Heart Present

Today I went down to Davis, little sweetheart, to meet up with Noah. We often do this when I’m out in NorCal. He drives over from work in Sacramento and we meet at The Angel, at the little resting place where I know you aren’t exclusively, I know your spirit flies unencumbered by time or space and that you simply alight places, like here, to let me know you’re with and to comfort me. Thank you, sweetheart. I arrived before noon, stopping first as you and I always did when we first pulled up into Davis, before even going to the house, at The Nugget Market. I bought some nice roses for you and then headed over. I was tidying things up there and arranging your flowers when Noah arrived. He likes to come and talk to your brother, my love, just like I do with you and he told me I’m the only other person he knows who will come here and meet him.

We talked for a long while, nearly an hour – about you both, about Noah’s lovely parents and yours, about Noah’s two little boys, and that he and his wife and your brother’s friends Pat & Nicole might all come to New York for a visit this spring. Noah already had the iTunes version of our Christmas record, my sweetheart, but the CDs came out while I’ve been here in California, so I gave him two copies. There’s a gorgeous picture of you on the back (and two more inside) on the roof of our apartment building in NYC during our first snowfall that season just before Christmas. We talked for quite a while, as I say, and finally he had to get back to work. So, I hugged him and he said goodbye and walked back to his car. I watched him drive off. And then, as I stood there alone, slowly sitting down, almost immediately after, to talk to you, my heart became so full and heavy, my little sweetheart. And I cried and cried.

Oh, how I miss you, my darling girl! With all my heart and soul I do. It makes my whole body tremble with sadness and grief and longing. And I get so very sad, so heart-shatteringly sad and terribly terribly lonely. But, ya know, sweetheart – it’s good to cry for you, my love. I’m glad in a way that I feel this, feel you so strongly always. For I know that means that you are with me. Both here and everywhere. I know from this feeling that you are doing your best to break through the invisible barriers that keep me from seeing you where you are, so not-very-far-away, nearly next to me sometimes. I know that you’re doing your best to let me know that. And I know that one day soon we will be together again and forever. I just need to be fully present with an open heart, so open that it can be filled to its very brim with all of you, my angel. My beautiful angel.