Ash Wednesday (2022)

Little sweetheart, today is the first day of Lent - Ash Wednesday. These days of observation - especially Holy Week, which marks the end of Lent and continues on to Easter - have become increasingly important to me over the years. 

Ash Wednesday wasn’t something I knew well growing up. It was only after I found that little church up on West End Avenue and regularly attended their Ash Wednesday service that I came to understand its importance, feel its weight, find it resonant in strengthening my faith. And of course, there was the awful and surreal vision of seeing early morning visitors and healthcare personnel arriving with their foreheads marked by ash in the corridors of SF General the morning after your accident eleven years ago. That realization that Tuesday night had become Wednesday morning and indeed was Ash Wednesday itself, remains seared into my memory. 

It’s terribly sad, little sweetheart, but also underscores my belief that there is so much more beyond what, merely mortal, I can perceive with my senses. I know you see all. That you see me and do your best to comfort and guide me. Maybe the most important thing I routinely speak of in my prayers is a wish that I listen ever more closely for your voice and guidance. This day is a very good one to remind me of that. 

With all my love forever.

Ash Wednesday 2020

It’s Ash Wednesday, little sweetheart. For a couple of reasons, it seems important that I observe it. I didn’t really, until a few years ago.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent which itself is the season of worship just prior to Holy Week concluding with Easter Sunday. The most striking thing in my own life about Ash Wednesday, of course, is that it came the morning after your accident that year.

After spending the whole night awake in the halls of the hospital waiting to see you, the shift changed in the morning and people began coming to work, many of them wearing the black ash mark of the cross on their foreheads. Eerie, surreal and unforgettable, it has stayed with me ever since that terrible terrible day.

It wasn’t until a year or two later when I discovered the little church on West End Avenue that I first attended an Ash Wednesday service (outside of happening into one in London when I visited St Paul’s). It was the first one I’d ever participated in, actually hearing the blessing and receiving the ashes myself. I’ve continued every year since.

Tonight there’s a service at West End but I’m gong instead to the one here at Sacred Heart, which is a bit closer and directly across the street from the rectory where I take cookies and things to Sister Catherine and the nuns. My prayers, as ever, are for you.

May God keep you safe in the Beautiful New Place and help me to hew the path of goodness and kindness and come to you when it is my time. With all my love forever.

That Morning After

Little sweetheart, today is Ash Wednesday - rather unforgettable for it having been on March 9 in 2011, that morning after your accident.

From rushing to your side and tearing my shirt off to lay under and cradle your head, to rushing in a police car to the hospital where they had taken you and sitting on the floor outside the ICU waiting to able to finally see you, when the tears, overcoming the shock, broke through in a torrent that continues to this day and the sobs wracked my breathing, only ever one hard breath removed from me even now, I sat there. And as the night shift at SF General turned to the Wednesday morning one, I saw people arrive, both staff and visitors, with the sign of the cross in black ash marking foreheads.

It was an eerie almost surrealistic sight. And somehow quite appropriate. It signaled something urgent and other-worldly. In those days and hours that stay with me always I remember how my hand would involuntarily cover my mouth, a gesture of shock and grief, almost a cliche, but made now so true to my understanding. I think in those moments our souls very nearly leave our bodies, longing to join and merge with the most beloved - you.

It’s Ash Wednesday, little sweetheart, and my every thought, my every prayer, my entire being is with you. With all my love forever.

Ash Wednesday

In addition to it being Valentines Day today, little sweetheart, it’s also Ash Wednesday.

One of the holiest days of the year, it also is filled with the most intense kind of sadness and grief for me personally because in 2011 Ash Wednesday came the morning after your tragic accident.

In the hospital all night waiting to see you in the ICU, as dawn broke and people began to arrive for work, to visit, or otherwise, the very signature and surreal sight of many with the mark of the cross in black ash upon their foreheads began to multiply. It was eerie and heartbreaking.

It wasn’t until a few years ago when I first began going to that little lurch on the Upper West Side that I’ve told you about, that first participated in the ritual myself. You come forward for what is called “The Imposition of Ashes” and the minister or priest says something and makes the mark upon you.

Today, instead of going up to West End, I stopped at Sacred Heart, the little Spanish church right across from that rectory I’ve told you of, where the nuns live and where the tiny garden with the statue of the Bless Virgin Mary stands - the spot I pass a few times each day and always stop to say our prayer, asking God to keep you safely in His care and to take me to you as soon as Heaven will allow.

For all these reasons, I’m thinking and longing for you today, my darling girl. Please help and guide me and take me to you, fold me again alongside where I may be with you always, forever. With all my love.

Candles and Prayers

Little sweetheart, today is Ash Wednesday.

I went to services up at that little church I told you about. It's the usual Wednesday night for the candlelight meditation, so it was part that/part Ash Wednesday-ish. When they put the little cross on your forehead, they call that "the imposition of ashes." They did that and I said my prayer for you, for us, and I sang and I was filled with thoughts of you.

Ash Wednesday is also the beginning of Lent, little sweetheart, when people "give up" things. Another part of the service was an opportunity to write something down, maybe something that you wanted to unburden yourself of, and then burn it in a little bowl. I wrote down something that weighs very heavy with me, little sweetheart - all my mistakes.

I'm so very sorry, my darling, for every mistake, any time I may have hurt your tender feelings, any cross word that I may ever have uttered. I know that we are both terribly emotional and passionate - that's one of the wonderful things about our finding each other, we could never scare the other away, only match one another and cling together even stronger. And I know both that little arguments or rough patches are just a part of relationships in general and that any of ours always came with and from the underlining great need that we just wanted to be together even more. Any little flare up only ever had at its root a plea from you to me or from me to you just to hold each other a little tighter and never ever let go. I know it's mutual. But I still just ache and want to kill myself for every and any mistake or ever hurting your feelings, even if we made everything okay moments later and I cried and you forgave me and understood. It still haunts me.

So, I wrote that down, little sweetheart. I wrote down how sorry I am for all my mistakes, little sweetheart. And I folded it up and burned the piece of paper in the little bowl there and then I prayed.

Before I left, I talked to that nice lady minister, Jes, I've told you about. And we prayer together for you, too. And then I asked her if she believed that you and I would be together again. I cried and cried as I said the words. And she yes. She said we believe that and she said that she believes that and she will believe that for us and that I can believe too.

And I do, little sweetheart. I believe and pray for that. And when I came home, I made sure your candle was burning and then I took a little picture with my head titled close to yours.

I love and miss you, my love. My True Love, my best friend, my soulmate, my partner, my gingersnap, my little sweetheart. My Summer, I love you with all my heart and soul. Please help and guide me today, my darling. And please take me to you the minute that heaven will allow. With all my love forever...