Portals

I woke a few weeks ago to something strange, little sweetheart. When I powered up my MacBook and opened the mail program, it settled on an email not from the previous day or a new one from that morning but from one dated May 28, 2009. I didn’t know why. May 28 this year comes tomorrow. Is it meant to be a sign, do you think? Is it a day I should observe, I should mark? Is it the day that you will come for me, at last?

I wondered if maybe something magic might happen were I to open it, to reply. Would it take me through a portal to you, my love? Or to you and to those deliriously happy days with you? A portal – like in that movie we liked so much, the one we got from the sweet little video store there in the Inner Sunset just around the corner from your apartment. How we watched it together sitting on your bed and holding hands so tightly we didn’t even realize anymore that we were until the movie was over. We were one.

Do you remember, my little sweetheart? A portal!

I remember one other time something like this happening. It was shortly after your tragic passing, my love. I was still in NorCal, staying with Chris & Sheri, all my things gathered from your apartment, my life with you there now in shopping bags and crammed along with my person into the abandoned nursery in the back of their ranch house in Marin – children’s toys, a mini-bunkbed and me. One morning I opened my laptop and saw a new email, an invitation from Virgin America to check-in online and print a boarding pass for the flight I had already taken six weeks before to come see you. I just sat there staring at it. I wondered and prayed that if I clicked on the link there, that somehow it would take me back in time to February 12 to make the flight from JFK all over again and that you would meet me at the kiss-and-drive at SFO like always and I would hold you and hold you so tight, just like holding hands on your bed, and never let you go, never let any harm come to you, never ever be torn from you again.

A portal, Summer. A portal, my little sweetheart.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, my love. I never do. But if May 28 is meant to be the day you finally come for me and this email from six years ago is here to tell me that, a sign to say, “get ready”, I welcome it. I welcome it with all my heart. And I am ready, my little sweetheart. I am ready and only waiting for you… 

Thankfulness...

I was on the train this morning, little sweetheart. I've been narrating an audiobook this week and the sessions are at recording studios out in Newark, so everyday I've been up early and out to Penn Station to catch NJ Transit. It's been different getting up at that hour and it makes me go to bed earlier too, which isn't at all an entirely bad thing.

I remember how you loved sleeping and especially sleeping late. 10am was your preferred "early" wake time and I came to love that too. I'd been used to getting up a bit earlier to run in the mornings but found it impossible, indeed foolhardy, to leave bed if you were wrapped around me, your little ankles locked around mine, your head on my shoulder, your hand in mine. Waking with you was one of the best feelings in my life. As waking now without you is among the most continuously traumatic- it's like waking to tragic news each day.

Mornings are hard, my love. But today as I found a seat on the mostly empty early train (mostly empty because it's a reverse commute - most people at that hour are coming into the city not leaving) I thought of you, thought of the dream I had of you my last night in your bed at the family house this last Christmas holiday, that dream of you and I together and you telling me that we should "make a list of all the people we need to forgive".

I thought of that as I sat there watching the industrial landscape go by and I imagined you telling me to think of the things that I had this week to be thankful for. I thought of the book, that I was going to a job I liked, narrating an audiobook and how much you'd like to hear it when it's done, how you'd like to be sitting right there (and probably are) as I read aloud. I thought about how the band has been getting air play on both Irene Trudel's show and, this week, also on Liz Berg's program - both on WFMU. How that was such a dream of ours and that now it's happening - and with increasing regularity.

Those are both things to very thankful for, my sweetheart. You're absolutely right, as always. And also, maybe foremost, my love, I'm thankful for the lovely little Wednesday night candlelight Taize service at the beautiful little church on West End and 77th. The people there are so nice and thoughtful and kind. And I love that hour of mindfulness where I can be quiet and think and sing and pray for you. And last night afterwards, that nice young woman minister I told you about, Jes, came up and hugged me. And so did the nice choral director, Cynthia. And as I left, one more woman said to me that it was so nice to hear your name, my love - because I say it at that point in the service when we're invited to name either silently or aloud the people we wish to send prayers for.  I thanked the nice woman (I wanted to ask her name!) and said that you are always with me and she replied "I know that she is".

You are, my little sweetheart. My heart is so full of love for you. You reside there. Always, sweetheart. Please always be with me.

Don't Panic

Just thinking of you, little sweetheart, and how you very emphatically informed your father that it would be such a terribly good idea for him to give me my first iPhone for Christmas in 2009 because you had one too and it was frustrating you no end having to deal with my bottom of the line Nokia - the free one ya got back then when you signed up for cheapest-they-got service with AT&T. I remember - and I may have noted here before - how as soon as we got back to the house with the brand new phone, that you immediately whisked it out of my hands and into your own so that you could enter all your info as my first "contact" and putting yourself down, as you remain to this day, as "Cheeky". But I was also thinking just now of how you, never terribly tech-minded, thoughtfully gave me a quick tutorial on a few things, chief among them how to actually use the device as a telephone. "It doesn't have any buttons", you said, "but don't worry. If you get a call and they want you to enter a number or something, don't panic", you continued, clearly speaking from (a presumably panicky) experience, "just touch it like this", you showed me, "and a keyboard comes up." It maybe seems like a simple thing, but to me, just now remembering, it is an almost heartbreaking touch of kindness. The extraordinary kindness that simply was your way. The kind of kindness you were filled with and I am forever grateful for. As I am grateful for you and the true love and light you brought to my life. My little sweetheart, I love you so. Love you forever.

Mother's Day

Thinking of you today, little sweetheart, and our moms – yours and mine – and how you yourself wanted to raise a child with me and be a mommy yourself... I held an infant in my arms last week, sweetheart. This nice couple I’ve gotten to know have a nearly-newborn, and that day, the mom was on her own. She was trying to gather everything up on her way out, I asked if I could help and she said “can you hold him for a minute?”. As she wrestled with the baby sling, attempting to secure its finicky snaps, I took her tiny charge in my arms. I’d never held a baby before, sweetheart. I didn’t tell her that until after (!). I was surprised how warm he felt. And he locked eyes with me, smiling, and gripped my index finger tightly in his little fist. That night I had a dream and you were with me, my love. We were eating pizza, you improving your slice with your go-to condiments of seasoned salt and lemon pepper, and my mom came in. When you got up for a second, she told me that the two of you had been talking and that you had told her many things about your own mother - all those great stories of your epic, beautiful childhood - and how much you loved her. I asked when did you two talk and she said “we were over there, by the window.” When you sat back down, you’d brought me a gift. I opened the box. There was a watch inside. And you kissed me. Is it almost time, my love? It’s Mother’s Day and these are some of my thoughts. Is it almost time? I’ll look for you two in every window until then…

Wake from dreaming...

When I woke this morning it was from a dream with you, little sweetheart! So, I grabbed my phone and spoke everything I could remember into a voice memo. I just listened back to it and it's a little groggy and a little intimate and I'm speaking to you, as I often do, but the gist is this: we were all out grocery shopping - or at the market as you would say. We'd all broken up into small groups of hunter gatherers and after meeting up again at the checkout, we wheeled the shopping cart - I did actually - out to the parking lot. But no one could remember where we'd parked. We couldn't find the car anywhere. Also, none of the groceries were in bags. Everything was loose in the shopping cart. So you and your mom went back into the store, the market, and got a bunch of plastic shopping bags, because we were going to have to walk home carrying everything. We were talking excitedly about some shows we were all going to watch on PBS and joking around too. Noah was there and he had bought a copy of Vogue that he wanted me to read for some reason. He or maybe he and Ryan, actually, had written some things on the cover with a ballpoint pen. Like a cartoon bubble over the model's head, and what she was thinking or saying. We were putting everything in the bags and you took the copy of Vogue and I laughed and said "actually, that's mine. Noah gave it to me". Then, you laughed, too, and started reading the thing on the cover. I don't remember what it said. Everyone, mysterious misplaced vehicle notwithstanding, was in great spirits. Your mom was in fine form, my sweetheart. Maybe the happiest I've ever seen her. And you were there! Oh, my love. We all were. I never have a better dream than dreams of being with you. I love it when you're in my dreams and fear that when you aren't that I must have done something terribly wrong. Please be with me always, my darling. Please forgive me for all my mistakes. I certainly do make a lot of them. And I'm so very sorry. But I love you with all my heart and soul. Please help me to do better and take me with you soon, won't you, my darling girl?  Waking is often hard. But this morning I had this wonderful dream to hang on to. And I was grateful.