Valentines, Pt 2

Our second Valentines together was the very next year when your Dad very generously invited a large group of extended family and friends to share a big beautiful house in Lake Tahoe for Valentines Weekend - what we came to call the vacation when “we went to the snow”.

Everyone was coming from different places - your parents from Yuba City, your brother and his friends from Portland, Michelle and the kids from Roseville and us from San Francisco - and meeting there.

Everyone else got up there ahead of us because you had a class to teach downtown at ACT’s Young People’s Conservatory that afternoon. We’d been walking along down there on the way to one of your classes earlier that week when I saw something catch your eye in the window at Macy’s. So, I made a note of it and that afternoon - when I was meant to pick you up from class so we could begin the long drive straight from there to Lake Tahoe - I stopped in first and bought it for you. It was a pretty top and bottom set of pink polka dot lingerie set against a black background. You loved it! I gave it to you in the car.

We soon hit a lot of snow driving through the mountains, We were listening to the first Bon Ivor album over and over. We’d just got it the week before and we were singing along to one another. We stopped for gas and when we went in to pay, looked around for a snack or two. I was getting myself a coffee, when I saw a pair of Valentines sunglasses -  pink and white with hearts on the frames. I bought them for you and embarrassed you a little when I said to the cashier, breathlessly, “isn’t she (you!) the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen!”

You are and always will be, my little sweetheart. My heart is so full this morning thinking of you.

February 14th

I've been thinking all day of Valentines with you, my sweetheart, in 2009. Our trip "to the snow" - to Lake Tahoe with your folks. We drove up into the mountains after your last class, in your car- everyone else had gone the day before. The drive was lovely and the whole weekend was wonderful. It was magic then. We'd just discovered Bon Iver, and we sang the songs to each other full of tears and passion, in the fullest bloom of true true love. We rode a snowmobile together, you taking your turn at the wheel first with me holding onto you behind, and you were, as ever, fearless. We cooked delicious meals in the enormous kitchen of the gorgeous house your dad had rented, played board games in the dining room, watched "La Strada" in the basement screening room, pulled giant icicles off the snowed-in back porch, napped on the lower bunk bed in my room. The day before we left SF, we'd walked past a window display of Valentines-themed lingerie. You saw a pink-polka-dot-heart-on-black set of bra and panties, and mentioned how cute you thought they were. So I sneaked back while you were teaching your class and bought them for you, handing the gift-wrapped box to you in the car, my eyes full of love. We stopped on the way up for gas at some point and I bought you a hot chocolate (coffee for me) and a pair of Valentine sunglasses. I embarrassed you a little when I asked the cashier if she'd ever seen so beautiful a girl as you. On the last day, after we packed up and everyone except your mom and dad and you and I had left, they told me, with you chiming in, the full story of your double-organ transplant, the surgeries that saved and changed your life (and mine too, now) just the year before you and I met. We drove back through the mountains in your battle-scared blue Prius, stopping at a roadside pass to have the chains taken off the tires. We'd gotten 60 inches of snow the day before. Hours later, we'd be in sunny NorCal again, your dad pulling a couple of tangerines from the tree in your backyard and handing me one. "You're a much better driver than Summer," he said. "Don't tell her I said that." My darling, it's Valentines and these are some of my thoughts. I miss you so. I ache to be with you. Still, I feel you with me. Help me do things right, won't you? And bring me to you, come for me soon. With all my love, my little sweetheart... xM

Feb 14th

Little sweetheart, it's Valentines Day and I am missing you. And I'm remembering that you and I went to Lake Tahoe on my first vacation with your family for Valentines seven years ago. Our "Trip to the Snow" we called it. It was lovely. You and I were the last to arrive. We drove up from SF after you finished teaching your class at ACT. We'd been walking past the window outside Macy's on O'Farrell and I'd watched you eyeing a cute bra and panties set on display there. It was black and pink and very Valentines pretty. So, I secretly went back and bought it for you and had it in a gift-wrapped box when I picked you up after your class in the car. It was late afternoon and it started to get dark and snowy as we made our way up through the mountains, remember, my darling? When we stopped for gas, there was a rack of novelty shades, so I bought you a pair of pink Valentines sunglasses. I asked the cashier if she had ever seen as beautiful a girl as you. The Bon Iver record had come out and we had it on in the car on repeat. We sang and cried and held each other. It was our first Valentines together. Our last was five years ago today. We would have less than one month left together on earth. We couldn't know. We couldn't know. Oh, my little sweetheart, do come to me soon! Take me with you in The Forever. For now, I see through a glass, darkly. But then, I will know even as I am known. As you know. Please show me the way. Show me everything. Show me all you know and let me learn. Until that day! Until that day!