Nov 2 - All Soul's Day

Today is All Soul’s Day, little sweetheart. The twin of yesterday’s observation of All Saint’s Day. 

Both because of the pandemic and because of other changes in leadership, I don’t really have a church to go to in person to observe the day. But I have found some very beautiful and meaningful services online. 

I think my favorites are those from Trinity Church all the way down at the bottom of the island, near the World Trade Center memorial. Trinity Wall Street, it’s sometimes called. It’s one of the oldest churches in New York and has really thoughtful, beautiful services. An old friend of mine from DC actually works as a church administrator there, so perhaps I’ll go in person, someday. 

And I’ve just begun to know of a much smaller little church, somewhat closer to home - in the East 60’s - called the du Saint-Esprit, a French church where they hold Taize services. Taize is that French traditional candlelight meditation service that I used to attend at West End. Saint-Esprit holds Taize on Thursdays and I think I may go to one soon. 

Regardless, my little sweetheart, I am in prayer and meditation today, thinking of and longing for you with all my heart and soul.  

March 18, 2020

Little sweetheart, tonight is awful anniversary of your passing. It’s always so hard but I try my best to do the things you would tell me to. I texted your parents this morning and sent an new little flowering green plant to your mom for all three of you.

Tonight I would have usually gone to Taize to light a candle and pray for you but the sanctuary is closed because of the coronavirus, I was telling you about. What they did instead was have a “virtual” service. They’re using a video conferencing app now at the church like office workers do for meetings, so I was able to watch and listen and say a prayer for you after all.

As I said, just the other night I was looking out the window and I noticed the moonrise. It was enormous and full and when I looked it up I discovered it was the night of a supermoon, not unlike the one that rose above your folks and I when we went out in the hospital parking lot after you ascended on this very night nine years ago to the very heavens.

I went up on the roof and gazed at the moon, luminous just like you, and talked with you for quiet a while.

These are difficult days, little sweetheart but my heart is filled with love for you. And I promise to do my best, waiting patiently, working diligently until you can take me home with you again and forever.

With all my love.

Snow Squall

We had the craziest weather today, little sweetheart.

It’s been cold and rainy for days and I hadn’t been for a run in a week but it was sunny this morning, so I was able to get one in in the early afternoon. After I got back the weather was still really nice - the light bouncing off the buildings was almost a spring-like one, I noticed as I sat here at my desk. Just about 10 minutes later it had grown incredibly dark and was suddenly snow - the wind kicking it around even more.

After an hour it stopped and brightened again to twilight just before the sun went down. I walked up to the little church at 77th and West End for the Wednesday night candlelight service. They asked me to read the opening passage and later I came forward and lit a candle for you and said our prayer just like always. Both Christmas and New Year’s fall on Wednesday this year so there won’t be another service until the second week in January. I’m glad I went.

Then as I came out after, it had snowed a bit more. Everything was blanketed with a pretty covering of free snow and it looked rather magical. The walk home was cold but I was bundled up with the beautiful sweater you made for and gave me for our first Christmas.

The holidays seem especially sad this year, somehow, little sweetheart and I miss and my mom terribly. But I ask quietly to hear your guidance and to strengthen my faith that you are safely in God’s care and that I will be with you again and forever in just the blink of an eye.

With all my love.

Enfolded

I went uptown to that little candlelight meditation, last night, little sweetheart.

I went last week too and found it was much colder walking home than walking there. I’d very much wished I’d brought the beautiful scarf you made for me. So, tonight, I put it and a pair of gloves in my backpack, not needing them for the walk top but at the ready for the walk back, in case it was so bitterly colder after, again.

Since last week, they’d put up Christmas decorations, little sweetheart. It was mostly pine wreaths and garlands. The had them wrapped around the banisters leading up the steps outside the front door and in wreaths around the crowns of the pews at each aisle. I sat in my place in the back and sang along with the chants, coming forward when it was time, to light a candle for you and say our prayer. The lights darkened after as the meditation began and everyone was silently in contemplation for a long while.

My thoughts, as always, fly to you, and after the service resumed with two final songs, a prayer and the benediction, I wrapped myself up in your beautiful scarf and braved the cold. I needed it! Just as I need you. And there is something so magical in being literally wrapped up, enfolded in the beautiful warm scarf you made for me with your very hands. It keeps me close to you.

May it be ever so. With all my love…

Taize Prayers

Taize - that little candlelight meditation on Wednesday nights - has started back up, little sweetheart, and I went tonight. I won’t be able to get back to another one for three weeks but that one falls quite wonderfully on your birthday.

Tonight I was asked to read a prayer at the end which was a actually composed by the Dean of Grace Cathedral where your mom and I have gone a couple of times in San Francisco.

It’s so nice just to sit at the back in the peaceful darkness of the sanctuary lit only mostly by candles, quietly sing the chants in my weird harmonies and come forward later to light a candle and say our prayer. It’s an hour of welcome quiet where I can reflect and feel close to you, listen for your guidance and tell you how much I love and long for you. And the gratitude I feel for your having found me.

Find me again, won’t you, my love? Over and over. Forever.

Change and What Remains

I finally got back up to the little church where they have the Wednesday night candlelight service, little sweetheart. I’m glad I did because it was the penultimate one of the year. They usually go all the way through June before taking an hiatus until October but this year they’re ending next week.

It was good to sit quietly, thinking of and praying for you. To sing the songs all the way at the back, on my own. To come forward and light a candle and say our prayer. To sit in the silence during the centerpiece meditation when the sanctuary grows yet darker and to hear birdsong outside, knowing you are near.
For nearly three years this ritual was a very integral part of my life, little sweetheart. Its mindfulness helped me quiet myself, I think, and keep you near.

I was on a walk yesterday and wound up going past. I found myself thinking how much had changed there, two of the main pastors moving on to other parishes and all that’s happened to myself, how I nearly died and did leave my body for ten minutes. While I was looking at a block of Broadway just north of there that is now, shockingly, half vacant, one of the first people I ever met at the church happened by recognizing and calling out my name. She was very involved there and has retreated now herself.

I’m not sure how I would characterize my own experience. Have I retreated? I just know that although things change and the ways in which I seek you do themselves, you remain constant. It’s all for you, little sweetheart. You are my home. Please always be with me.

With all my love forever.

First Night Back

Little sweetheart, tonight was the first night of the new season of Taize - that little candlelight mediation service held on Wednesdays up at that sweet old little church I told you about on the Upper West Side. They take the months of July, August and September off.

I’ve been working on my recovery from the injuries after getting hit by the car in April, so it was very nice to be there, sitting quietly in the back, singing soft harmonies to the chants, coming forward in the near-darkness to light a candle for you and say our prayer, repeating it yet again once back at my seat before falling into silent contemplation.

Please be near me today, little sweetheart. Help and guide me. I love you with all my heart and soul.

Please Guide Me

Little sweetheart, I’ve been back in New York for a couple of weeks. Usually on Wednesdays I go to that little meditation service I’ve told you about. I missed a week (or was it two?) but have been twice also since returning, last night among them.

It drained me, darling. It’s become so emotional, maybe it always was, sitting alone, aside, to myself, singing my harmonies and repeating the prayers and coming forward and lighting a candle and whispering my own, whispering our prayer, that you be in the safe care of The Forever and that I might join you there as soon as possible, as soon as allowed, tonight if it is so willed. The silent meditation is after that part, the candle lighting. I return to my seat, the lights are lowered yet further, and we sit in silence for 10 or 15 minutes.

After the benediction, the musicians play once more and although others begin to rise and speak to each other breezily, tonight and often, I sit and pray and talk to you. And I wept so hard tonight, my little sweetheart.

I feel so lost and so alone and miss you so terribly. I don’t mind the pain, the longing. It feels a part of us, it feels like something to honor - this hole in my heart that only you can fill.

But I wonder if going there on Wednesday nights is really helping or if my time would be better spent here at my desk working feverishly on telling our story, telling you my thoughts, speaking to you from the depths of our shared soul.

It’s an hour walk there, an hour long service and an hour walk back. Those three hours have value, especially if they are a quiet block of time that focuses my attention in communion with your spirit. That, I treasure. I think, aside from the waves of emotion that hit me (and I do value), the exhaustion makes me wonder if maybe I should just try to keep those three hours here at home instead of in public, such as it is.

Will you please help me to decide, little sweetheart? Will you please guide me and let me know? I need you more than ever. And I love you with all my heart and soul.

As I used to say just if you were only going to the kitchen for a moment or shifting your weight a bit as we lay together in bed - please don’t go too far away. With all my love forever… xM

Other Mourners

Little sweetheart, I met a nice lady a little while ago at that candlelight meditation service I’ve told you about. She lost her husband three years ago and I think she first introduced herself after I read one of the poems I’d written for you and read it aloud in the service in March. Her late-husband and her son are both drummers. Her husband was also named Michael and he was mostly a classical drummer and percussionist, playing with all kinds of famous ensembles and symphonies.

A while back, just before the service takes a break for the months of July, August and September, resuming in October, I gave her a copy of Dream Together. She really liked it and seemed to find it especially resonant, as sometimes others who have suffered great loss only can.

Tonight we actually met up for an hour or two before Taize. We met up at that nice little diner I like to take you to - Cafe 82 - up on Broadway. She wanted to hear more about you and how we met. It was so good to talk at length about you. I love doing that. I feel so close to you when I do. She and her Michael were married for most 40 years. He passed away after a bout with cancer, sadly.

There’s something about talking to other people who know about this - what it is to lose the great love of their life and who have faith that they will be reunited, that their soulmate is still nearer than they can imagine, helping to guide and comfort them, as I know you are with me. They’re not so impatient for you to “get over” the loss or look for someone else. They get it. It’s nice when that happens.

I’m doing my best to find my way… in my best hours anyway, little sweetheart. Please help me to make that be more often than not. Please help me to quiet myself and listen for you. I know you’re there and only seek to help me. God bless you for that and for everything. I’m so grateful for you. With all my love forever.

In Our Hearts

Little sweetheart, tonight I went up to that little church I’ve told you about. On Wednesday nights they have that candlelight meditation service. There’s music and spoken word and a long silence at its center and the sanctuary is lit almost solely by candles. It was lovely tonight to sit quietly and to sing the little chants and say our prayer, my prayer for you and for guidance and to be delivered back to your side forever.

Near the end tonight was a little responsive prayer - one voice takes part of it and then everyone joins in in unison at others. One of unison phrases was so resonant to me, I circled it in the bulletin and brought it home, so I could write to you about it now. This is it, first the call and then the response:

Call: God of our mixed-up, tragic, aspiring, doubting and insurgent lives…
Response: Help us to be as good as in our hearts we have always wanted to be.

This is so perfect for me, my darling.

I’m almost always glad I take the long walk up there and back on Wednesday nights and have that quiet hour to calm me and think and pray for you and guidance and to return to your side. I still make so many mistakes, have so many false starts, fall prey to far too many distractions. But it is you who always redeem me. May I be worthy of you, my darling.

Please please help me to be as good as in my heart you have seen and can make me, because it’s what more than anything - to honor and be the person you believed and were (and still are!) making me grow and become. With a grateful spirit and all my love forever. 

First Taize Back

Little sweetheart, last night was the first night of the new season of “Taize” - that candlelight meditation service that’s held on Wednesday nights at that little church on the Upper West Side I told you about. It’s what gave me the idea for our album, Electric Hymnal, remember? They take off from the end of June until the beginning of October, so last night was when it resumed.

I sat in the spot I like, a little corner aisle seat, and read through the bulletin which details the order of the service, which chants are sung, the prayers and poetry and readings and reflection. I was asked to read one myself - the responsive prayer near the end of the service. And it was good to hear and sing the familiar chants. I usually do harmonies, ones called to mind over time, some of which made their way onto the album itself when we did it.

At the center, of course, is the long silent mediation and the opportunity to come forward, little a candle and say a personal prayer. I always light a candle and say ours, little sweetheart, praying for your safe-keeping in The Forever and my fervent wish to join you as soon as heaven will allow. At that part of the service, the sanctuary, already only dimly lit, is illuminated only by candles - those on and around the alter and the little votives that we come forward to light for our prayers, for our beloveds, for you.

It’s an important part of my week - quietly praying and chanting and sending my thoughts to you. I’m so glad its resumed. I feel very close to you and that is always my desire. It’s what guides me.

Please be with me today, won’t you, my angel? And take me to you just as soon as that may be. With all my love forever.

For You. Always.

On my way home from meditation service last night, little sweetheart, I saw the prettiest little pair of pajamas I think you would like. They were sorta light pink almost white but with a kind of rose hue too and they had double decker buses on them. I immediately thought how I'd so very much like to get them for you. And that made me remember how much I liked doing things like that. Getting little presents for you. Maybe I'll get these and start a new or resume an old tradition and just set them aside with a nice letter or card for you telling you all about it and saving it for you. I think I might do that. Love you forever.

All For You

I took this picture last night, little sweetheart, before the lovely Taize service I've been telling you about. I read the poem and lit a candle, saying a prayer for you, saying our prayer for you, for us, forever. May I be returned to you soon. Love you with all my heart and soul, my beautiful angel.