Before I Go...

Waking up this morning, little sweetheart, I say our prayer as I lay in bed, before rising and lighting your candle.

Then making coffee, I look around at the things I've laid out and the lists I've made of things to pack and things to remember before I leave. Ever anxious, I try to slow down, quiet myself and listen for your celestial, healing, eternal, guiding presence.

Please be with me today, little sweetheart. Let me know that you are near. And take me to you the moment Heaven will allow.

With all my love forever...

Last of the Year

Tonight was the first night in about a month, little sweetheart, that I was able to get up to that little church I've told you about, where they have the nice Wednesday night candlelight meditation service. I always insist on walking there and back and that's a good hour or two plus the service itself, so sometimes, when things are busy, I just can't quite make it happen.

I'm so glad when I do, though. It's good that there's air around it. It's good that it makes me leave things behind for a few hours. It helps me quiet myself and when I do, I can hear and find you better. And that's what I need more than anything. It's so good to sit quietly mindful, sing the chants, light a candle and say quiet prayers, our prayer, and speak to you. I'm always so much better when I know you're near.

Please help me, little sweetheart, to know that you are and to do as you instruct. With all my love forever. Forever.

Be True

Little sweetheart, I'm focusing on doing my best to get healthy and get back to our work and I think I really haven't quite yet taken in all that's happened, all that's happened to me, in these last weeks. Maybe it's too much to process just yet and maybe, as sometimes is the case in these situations, it's far more palpable to those closest to us than it is to ourselves, because they witnessed it and even though it happened to us, we were unconscious for all or parts of the events and may only have scattered memory of it all.

I suppose the enormity of it will eventually trigger my emotions and maybe I should be bracing myself for that. I'm only now really hearing about the second event, only now understanding that I left this life for over ten minutes when my heart stopped. What I do remember is that my mind was working, that I was still trying to communicate almost telepathically with those around me, earthbound, and that in those moments I felt as if they were understanding and responding.

One of the things that most bothered me after I was conscious was that I didn't simply soar to your side, but soon, and even now, I think that it wasn't quite time for that yet, that you yourself may well have had a hand in shepherding me back, keeping me in my earthly orbit for a bit longer, knowing better than I do myself that there are things I'm meant to complete here first.

I pray, little sweetheart, to know them and to dedicate myself ever more fervently to honor you and live up to the shining example of your loving kindness and character. In a word, (or two) to Be True.

And in the phrase that you shared with me and that, even after your tragic passing, your mom invoked and reminded me - because you and the great gift of your love are eternal and ever always present - don't waste the miracle.

I must be mindful, more than ever. I love you with all my heart and soul. In another of your oft repeated vows to me - Always.

With love forever.

To Do

Little sweetheart, it’s a difficult time. Many terribly sad anniversaries lay just weeks ahead from now and I’m already feeling the weight of them. I want so very much to please and honor and find you. I’m determined to write as much as I possibly can in the months ahead straight through the spring. Please be near me and guide me and help me remember and do my very best - for you!

I have a music side project to attend to that’s going to take up two weeks this month. I’m happy for it. I think it will be good for me, good for us.

But I long to be entirely immersed in you and our story. I long to get down everything I can. I want to be free of all distractions and somehow be the most efficient channeling device for your spirit.

Please help me to receive every transmission and relay with truth and virtue and power. Please guide and take me. I love you with all my heart and soul. Forever. Forever.

October

It’s a new month, little sweetheart, and always a good time to look forward to making good.

I feel as if I’ve lost a bit of steam and focus in these last weeks. I think was feeling a little overwhelmed and it made me step away from my resolve. Please help me to hang in there and just take one day at a time, my angel. I know if I just keep building every day, even a little, I’ll be moving in the right direction and cumulatively. I know there’s something true sometimes in stepping away from a large endeavor - it has to come forward in its own time and we need to breathe and have patience. But tarrying too long we can become disconnected, lose the thread.

Please help me to know the difference, my darling. And to not be afraid. Help me to be as courageous as you always are, Great Soul. May I listen for and heed you in all things. With all my love forever. 

Lost

Little sweetheart, I’m running aground again. So badly. So badly, I couldn’t even speak of it until now when I think, I hope, I’m finally turning a corner.

Sometimes, my darling, I’m just plunged into despair. Even, maybe especially, in moments when just before I seemed to have gotten myself together. I’m not drinking or about to hurt myself but I just lapse into other, slightly less mortal but altogether unhappy habits, simply out of loneliness and emptiness and a feeling there’s no where it turn.

And I know that’s not true! In my better moments, I do know exactly where to turn - to you. To simply quiet myself and listen. You’ll find me there, won’t you?

Please help me to remember that, little sweetheart. Please help me to go on past the darkest moments when I’m so overwhelmed by my grief and solitude and hopelessness and to know it’s okay to feel this awful because it is awful. But it’s not the end. You stand at the other side of this divide and will catch me when I fall. I just need to push through, have faith.

It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. How could it not be?! But your shining soul, your infinite goodness remains. Please help me remember that, little sweetheart. Even if I need to crumple in a heap to the floor and lay there weeping, help me to pass through, feeling all of it, to the other side and find you. You are my light. I love you with all my heart and soul.

Please help me to do better. For you. For us both. With all my love forever. Unto The Forever…

Great Cloud of Witnesses, The Communion of Saints

Little sweetheart, I need to do better. I must and I will. And this morning I was re-reading an email from a friend. Someone mentioned the Communion of Saints the other day and I was completely captivated by the idea. I asked my learned friend what she knew about it and she told me a lot including pointing me to a passage in Hebrews about A Great Cloud of Witnesses, which is a similar idea:

Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” --- 

May I let you guide me, my angel. You're the best person and purest soul I've ever known. May I run the path you've marked out for me and join you ever so soon in The Forever. With all my love...

March 18

Little sweetheart, today is a very hard day. I think many of them are. And certainly these ten from the 8th to the 18th each year.

I’ve come to call this day your Ascension Day. I think that’s the best way to think of it. And the band always doers something special on this day and on your birthday each year. Today, we’re releasing a special digital-only single. It’s my new arrangement of an old Scottish hymn (with some lyrics - about you, of course - too) and in our signature dreampop sound. It’s called “Watchers and Holy Ones”. The cover is below.

So, I’m glad we’re doing this today but it’s still a very hard day. A hard day to do very much of anything else. And I have to let myself do nothing and take it easy and just rest and sleep and pray and think of you and have your pictures and your presence around me. I sent some flowers - a pretty blooming Azalea plant - to your folks house for you and for them.

Mostly I’m just going to be nice and quiet today. And know there’s a reason it’s so hard and that’s okay. Because if I just quiet myself, I will be able to hear you in all the ways you try your best to let me know you are there, closer than I can imagine. And that one day, one day very soon, I may come to you or perhaps you to me (that’s better isn’t it, you finding me, just like before, just like always?) and that the Ascension will be complete because I will be with you again and forever and being with you is what completes me and this little life of mine. Isn’t that so, my sweetheart? Love you forever. 

Quietly (and not so quietly, too) ...

Remember, little sweetheart, how I was telling you the other day about the little notes I leave for myself? Sometimes they suggest a subject for further examination and writing. And other times they are a little instruction or reminder. Here’s one of the former. I mean to write about it at great length.
The introduction, the back story to it, is that I made an appointment with a new dentist. There are so many things that I have neglected in the horrible void of your physical absence, my little sweetheart. I haven’t entirely neglected my teeth. Don’t worry! But I hadn’t been to a dentist in quite some time. I found out that my health plan allowed me to - thank you Obamacare (seriously) !

So, I did my research and selected my provider with my usual narrow prerequisites - a new Jewish (preferably female) doctor on the Upper West Side. She did the initial check up, X-rays and examination, then had me come back to see her colleague.

And that’s what the note is about.

Her hygienist is a woman named Tatiana. She’s tall and gentle and has a vaguely east European accent. As she worked on me, I noticed that she spoke very softly to herself in a way that seemed to mirror her gentle actions. Although I couldn’t exactly make out the words, it seemed she was telling herself to remain mindful and gentle and cautious.

It was very lovely and quite resonant. And what I wrote later (when I was flossing at home - she told me I was doing it too roughly, “glide,” she said, “softly, never in an X, always in a C”!) was this:

“On we inveterate self-whisperers”.

I mean to write more on this because it is something I do constantly - I whisper and talk quietly (and sometimes quite emphatically) to myself and to you and to God. It’s a kind of prayer, certainly, but it’s more (Can anything really be “more” than a prayer? I guess I don’t mean “greater than”. I just mean “in addition to”, I think…) than that.

It’s the ongoing conversation even if I have trouble making out the words on the other end, on your end. And it’s about Faith. Knowing that you hear me. And quieting myself to listen for your answers. Awaiting instruction. With all my love forever…

The Love of My Life. Always.

Remember yesterday, little sweetheart, when I was talking about the little notes-to-self I write sometimes? Sometimes they’re a quick topical sentence or two meant to prompt me in writing something at far greater length later. Sometimes, they’re a kind of koan or mantra. Some little nugget to hold dear, to hold on to, to help me cope in these days before I’m allowed to join you in The Forever.

Sometimes they’re on index cards awaiting me at my desk. Sometimes, they’re hastily scrawled on a bit of scrap paper and left on the little table next to the front door, something to see and remind me before venturing out into the world and a new day. Sometimes, I tape them to the walls.

Here’s one - of the latter stripe (the instructive kind) - from a little while ago. It’s sitting right next to the keyboard:

“It may be a mouthful, but always say “The Love of My Life” not simply “My girlfriend”.

That’s a little instruction for me that I needed to get down on paper, my darling, because every time I would say it, it felt so inadequate. You are so much more than that - my true love, my best friend, my soulmate, my partner. The Love of My Life. My heart knows that. And my words need to reflect it. Always. With all my love…

Shh...

Little sweetheart, I had a bad day yesterday. I don't know how it happens but sometimes a day just unravels. I lose my way. I can't find the path back until I've closed my eyes and slept and woken and tried again. I think it's because I'm so lonely, my little sweetheart. I can easily be distracted without the True North of your presence to guide me. I say this often but it bears repeating because I need to be reminded and to heed the simple advice to just listen for you. Quiet myself and listen to you. To practice mindfulness, so that when I feel myself beginning to careen out of control, I recognize it and slow down and just unpack what's happening to me. To remember your love and your guidance and listen for you right that very moment. You always try to help me. I just need to be mindful. Be with me today, won't you, my love? I need you. More than ever.