A Cardinal Sighting!

I had my first long walk since I got back today, little sweetheart. I often walk along the route that’s also my running one - all the way west along the Hudson and up into Riverside Park - but today I decided to go through Central Park. I haven’t been there in a while - like since the classical music concert at Naumburg Bandshell in June. I usually head north and cross east around Lincoln Center, then walk up CPW to the park entrance there a little above W66th Street.

Today, as I was going up the stairs there was a big male cardinal perched in the branches there! I stopped in my tracks and watched him. I tried to surreptitiously slip my phone out of my pocket and take a picture since I was so close to him but he got wise to that and fluttered away, returning but deeper into the bushes, unseen. It still seemed very much like a blessing, though, little sweetheart.

It feels good to be back in NYC although I took quite an epic walk - like you and used to! - and am pretty knackered right now on top of the jetlag. Before I fade and hit the hay with an earlier than usual bedtime, I just need to prepare a birthday card for your mom and order her a cake for next week. Then, it’s off to sleep. See you in my dreams, I hope!

Robins in the Wreaths

Little sweetheart, for years there was this building next to the Sacred Heart rectory on W51st Street that was covered in scaffolding. More than that, it was encased, it seemed - like a wooden box had been built over it hiding whatever renovations were underway from prying eyes. For years, I say. Like at least 5. 

One day late last spring all of that came down and you could start to see the renovated building - a three story brownstone - and even its interior through the windows. It looked amazing. One day I met the owner, Casey, a young woman with a toddler and a dog, outside the building and we hit it off. She’s super nice. Later I met her husband and her eldest boy, I think he’s about six or seven. 

One of the things that I’ve loved about walking past the house is how she’s decorated it festively over every holiday. It was amazing on Halloween with cobwebs and pumpkins and everything. And just now, for Christmas, it looks absolutely beautiful. There are lights - simple, pretty white strands - at night, and by day it’s just awash in pine and red ribbons. There are wreaths and the front stairwell wrapped in thick, beautiful pine branches all the way up. 

I was coming back from my run and there was a robin perched in the midst of it all. He didn’t even flinch when I approached. I think he thought he was a in a forest! And then when he flew up a bit higher, I could see there were yet more birds, a couple more robins and a handful of sparrows, also nesting within. The first robin hadn’t flown higher so much to get away from me than to have a bit of lunch - Casey had weaved holly within the pine branches and our robin was feasting on a couple of little red berries hanging there! 

It was absolutely magical, little sweetheart. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell you! 

With all my love.   

Night and Day

The saddest anniversaries of March 8 and 18 have come around again, little sweetheart, and I have listened quietly for your presence and guidance.

Little things throughout the days have turned my head with their curious manifestations and I know, with faith, that you've drawn near. I'll always, however sadly, mark these days.

 

But I will also, always - far more joyously! - look to the many other days, like your birthday, which brought you into the world, and this very day of March 19th, that you & I observed as Our Anniversary, writ large, because it was that magic day and night that we knew, we really knew, we were one.

 

Thank god (quite literally) that you found me (as you liked to say).

 

Happy True Anniversary, little sweetheart.

 

Our Oneness Can Never Be Erased.

 

 

Sights & Signs

Little sweetheart, walking back after my run in Riverside Park today, I saw a couple looking intently at something in the middle distance. I stopped and looked, too, and saw that it was a cardinal. 

I drew closer and saw that was quite a little one. And definitely a male because of the brighter red coloring, the female has red highlights, also, but is more muted. He was easy to miss if you weren't paying close attention. He was somewhat removed from the trail and perched in the upper branches of a slim little tree. He really liked this spot, you could tell, because he lingered there for some time. I think I stood there for a full five minutes watching him until a breeze blew through the surroundings and he decided to take flight. 

I thought about him - and you! - as I walked on. I read of late that when we see a cardinal, ancient legend has it, it means someone very dear to us who has passed on has come to visit us. That's why I didn't want to go until he decided he would flutter away. I knew it was you reaching out to me with love and protection.

I was thinking of all this during the long walk back and then when I was stopped waiting for the light to change not far from home, I saw the time - 4:44pm. That's meant to be a time, if you notice it, that your guardian angel is hovering most near you. 

Little sweetheart, the weather which has been so fine these last wonderful days, is meant to turn again. The days are getting shorter and darker earlier. But today I know you were with me. 

Thank you, my angel. I'm listening. With all my love forever.

SF Set

I was watching a movie the other night, little sweetheart. I’d seen it before but it was funny because I had just been thinking of it and here it was on TCM. I mentioned to your dad after and he said he too he just watched it the day before that. It’s the Steve McQueen film Bullitt.

It’s famously set in San Francisco and it’s really kind of astonishing how many shows and movies are. Even films like this very much a product of their time (still good, just clearly a wonderful snapshot of their period), in this case the late 60’s, the city is somehow timeless. Seeing it in 1967/68 takes more there just as vividly as seeing footage from 2010 - which I did last night, watching a film about the Giants World Series run of that season.

So often, little sweetheart, and I know I’ve said this before, I feel like I can almost touch our life. Can feel it on my skin, in my heart, a part of the blood flowing through my veins and I have that sense that it is just ever so slightly out of my reach. Not so lost that it can’t be regained, found.

However frustrating the feeling, there’s also an enormous comfort in it. Like it can’t possibly really be gone if I can have this vivid of a sensation. And that, maybe my gorgeous girl, is a good sign, a bolster of faith.

You’re there. You are always. And so are we and our time, I just can’t get my fingers on it yet. But we are and are always. You’ll take me there, I know.

With all my love forever.

Thankful... For You!

Little sweetheart, today is Thanksgiving.

I'm all my own but I learned a couple of years ago that even if I am alone - be it on my birthday or some holiday meant for gathering like this one - I need to observe and not shrink from it. That only makes things the more lonely.

So, even though I miss you terribly (and my mom, too), I am so very grateful that you found me, that you come to me still in dreams and in the most unusual circumstances to fortify my faith. I know we'll be together again and forever. And even though I can't quite see where you are just now, we are together even in your seeming absence.

I'm so thankful and blessed, my little sweetheart. And I love you. Love you forever.

Listening For Signs

We’re right at the point of the autumn, little sweetheart, where we’re listening every night for some signal or sound that the radiators are going to whir to life. During the day it’s warm enough but by nightfall we’re both bundled up in hoodies and socks and straining to hear some indication that maybe a regulator has begun whistling and the pipes will fill with steam and warm the place up a bit.

I remember so well one of your last times here, little sweetheart, with that heat pipe in the WC so hot to the touch and you accidentally bumping up behind it and coming running back into the apartment to tell me.

Everything around me is evidence of you - thank god! It’s such an enormous comfort to have this shared history in events and phenomena, so that each time it comes around, my mind is flooded with thoughts of you. It’s such a blessing in your absence. And you are the blessing itself made flesh and spirit. You are the blessing of my life.

Faith!

I was walking over to the river this afternoon, little sweetheart, on my way to the pedestrian path to go for a run. I walk from the house over to where it starts just below Riverside Park and I was walking up 10th Avenue under some scaffolding that kind of cuts the sidewalk in half, making two lanes.

Suddenly someone came whisking past me very very close and startling me because they were talking. They weren't on foot. They were on an electric skateboard speeding past but very near because the sidewalk is so narrow there. I stopped in my tracks because it really did startle me and I watched him keep buzzing up the street, a bit annoyed.

Then, as I calmed down a little, I realized what he'd said. He had earbuds in, so he was probably talking to someone on his phone but all I heard was one word. It was this: faith.

What a strange and wonderful thing, however inadvertent. And it made me think immediately of you, little sweetheart.

Faith. Yes, faith, indeed. With all my love forever.

Butterfly Way

A butterfly followed me for an entire block, little sweetheart, on my way home from my run, this afternoon.

She fluttered in close around my head and then high away at my right, only to return, circling around again and again and leading me on. I spoke, saying "thank you" and "hi, sweetheart" because I knew it was you encouraging and comforting me and strengthening my faith.  How I love you!

Thank you, my little sweetheart! Love you forever.

Miracles Alight

One night we drove in Bantry, which is sort of the biggest town nearby. There was a lovely little place we always liked to go called The Snug. The food was good and it had a very homey vibe. The tables were almost like big tree trunks and there were vintage signs hanging on the walls and a big fireplace. It was very comfy and cozy.

The only problem ever was that it was sometimes quite crowded but this night we were about the only people there. Kris & I always had sat at the bar because you couldn’t get a table. This night we had our pick of them.

You loved the place. Neither of us often had red meat but all their meat was local and organic and grass fed, so we often would actually have steak there. You wanted a burger. And they had something on the menu that was actually two burgers. So, as was often your wont, you eat one and saved the second for later.

We stayed for some time, enjoying ourselves and we stepped back into the night and looked out at the bridge over Bantry Bay, we could see that a dozen swans had alighted there. We stood there and watched them for a quite a while.

It was another magical night with you, my little sweetheart. Swans, butterflies, all manner of miracles come near when you are with me. With all my love forever.

At The Edge of The World

One of the days, little sweetheart, that we were in Ireland, we got in the rental car and Kris drove us all out to the end of the Beara peninsula.

We were staying in Kilcrohane which is at the end of the lower, actually middle, of the three peninsulas, the Sheep's Head. The Beara is a bit more wild and rugged geographically at at its very edge is a trolley that goes to tiny Dursey Island. It's the westernmost point in Europe.

There's a little signpost there, with signs pointing in various directions and telling you how many miles or kilometers away various places are from that spot. One is for New York (3000 some miles, with a little swimmer icon), another for Tir na nOg - Irish for "Land of Youth" and, of course, the title of the play that first brought us together, how we met.

I gave Kris my phone and he took several pictures of you and I there at that sign. This is one of them. It was one of our last days in the car. You much more preferred going places on foot even if it didn't take us as far afield.

Just seeing you so close at my side brings me such a sense of calm, of peacefulness. You're always near, aren't you, my little sweetheart? Nearer than I can imagine. 

Light Eternal

Little sweetheart, yesterday as I was writing about you, writing about our first trip to London together, I suddenly smelled wax and a faint puff of smoke and I knew that the candle before your picture, two rooms away, had just burned out and you were telling me it was time to go light a new one.

I love how thoroughly I felt your presence in that moment and others - memory flooding forward with thoughts of you and all senses doubtless heightened because of that, perception deepening.

Please let me know you’re near, my little sweetheart. Please don’t go too far away. And please take me to you the moment heaven will allow.

With all my love forever.

The More That Simply Is

Little sweetheart, it’s four months since getting hit by the car and I only just today thought of something...

Both events - getting hit and two weeks later having the pulmonary embolism - happened on a Tuesday. And the latter, when my heart stopped for ten minutes was Tuesday May 8th, so very like the tragic accident that took you from me, which happened on Tuesday March 8th.

Numbers sometimes surround me in strange ways, little sweetheart. Some numbers will just very insistently come into my head. Often the angel numbers - eleven eleven - will appear as I glance at a clock. Or sometimes I’ll wonder what time it is while out walking, say the time out loud, then walk past a parking meter to find that is the exact time precisely.

Numbers and birdsong and glancing celestial light striking objects. A watch, long stopped, that begins suddenly ticking again, awakened. Dreams where you appear to me. All these things continue to confirm and comfort me with the knowledge that there is so much just beyond my grasp or sight or apprehension that nonetheless is. And I know I’ll be with you again soon and forever.

Visited!

Little sweetheart, I had my first dream last night where you came to me in the hospital. God knows (literally) that is the last place I want to be again let alone dream about but it was also in that kind of dreamlike way where a place is both like a place you know and completely different at the same time. It was, in a way, more like being home and more like you coming to take me home, too.

You were very concerned and concentrated on making sure i was taking the medication they'd prescribed me. And I ... was overjoyed at the sight of you.

Sometimes in dreams, you and I are as once we were, as we were before all that's befallen, and fine. Other times, in dreams that can sometimes be darker even in the light of your presence, the terrible thing has occurred but you're either still here or returned.

In this dream, somehow, you had never gone but were simply 'laying low', having wanted to get away from all the things that were confounding your life and just quietly regroup. You were here now both out of concern for me and also to let me in on your secret, sorry that you hadn't been able to before but knowing that wherever I was would be the first place they'd come looking. So, like a relocated witness under Federal protection, you'd had to keep up the fiction even with me.

But you were here now, in my arms and altogether real and whatever happened before was past, the future ours and forever.

I'm not sure exactly what the dream may foretell but it seems altogether hopeful, uncannily current and, as ever, comes as a relief and blessing - because whenever you alight in my sleep, my treasure, I am again and finally whole. How grateful I am!

With all my love forever.

Words and Thoughts and Guidance

Little sweetheart, tonight is Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday. It's the night of the Last Supper and the contemplation of Gethsemane.

I went to services again tonight and so much of what was said and transpired made me think of you and long for you and want to speak to you quietly, a bit like I'm doing now, I suppose, by writing this.

Sometimes when things are especially resonant, I'll circle them in the bulletin where they are printed and appear or if it's something that's spoken, I'll write it down in my own hand there.

Tonight, early in the service, during the Prayer of Confession, there was a passage that struck and stung me. It was talking about the Disciples but I took it deeper into my own heart. It read: that they "loved and followed you but they had also failed you."

Sometimes, when I think of things, moments where we argued or I was upset or mad, I am so overcome with remorse, little sweetheart. We only had so little time together and it absolutely crushes me to think I ever spent any of it quarreling or moody. It brings me to bitter tears to think of any moment in which I may have hurt your feelings. I know it's human - I know we both hurt each other's feelings from time to time and that we both are terribly emotional - that's a wonderful thing to share because we didn't frighten one another with our intensity. But still I regret it so very deeply and pray that you forgive and still love me as I do you with all my heart and soul.

Later on something else touched on that very theme. Something about praying to soften our hearts and being quick to forgive. Again, I feel that about myself. You are very kind and quick to forgive, my little sweetheart. And it was something that you were teaching and still are teaching me. 

After the homily and just before communion, there was a hymn, another I remember from last year. It's called Go To Dark Gethsemane. What struck me about it last year and again tonight is that next to the hymn itself, where the composer is usually listed, in big capital letters it says: REDHEAD. Isn't that amazing, my little gingersnap? The composer is actually someone with that last name - Redhead. It seemed that you were especially close in that moment.

Then, near the end, during the benediction, the pastor, the associate one, the young woman, Jes, I've told you about, was reading something from scripture in closing. "Do not be far away", she said.

My heart leapt because that's something I would always say to you, isn't it, little sweetheart? Even if you were only going into the next room or even just shifting your weight a little next to me in bed - "don't go too far away", I would always say to you.

And then, Jes, continued. "Oh, my help, please come quickly."

I needed to write these two things down and I began to do just that, but part of the Holy Thursday service is the slow outing of lights and by the time I began, the last of them were outed and we were in darkness, as we are to leave silently so. But I had my pen in hand and just kept writing even though I couldn't see. And that in itself is rather apt, don't you think, my little sweetheart?

You can see all now, all that there is. But I must wait, seeing now, as we say, through a glass darkly.

In this mortal life I must wait in darkness and just have faith that you are near and waiting for the moment you may take me to you. I must listen closely and heed your words of guidance. Even as I say and write not seeing, "don't go too far away, oh my help, my little sweetheart, please come quickly."

I love you my dear one, my true one, my only one. I love you forever. With all my heart and soul I do.

Sights & Signs

Just on the way back from my run, little sweetheart and I stopped, as ever, in front of the little shrine in the garden of the rectory at Sacred Heart to say our prayer. As I did, and as there often is, there were sweet little birds fluttering overhead, some alighting on branches, others enjoying the little birdbath there and singing their glorious little songs. One in particular was taking a prolonged dip as I spoke our prayer and as I finished he was splashing, fully-soaked, quite happily, his little wings stirring up quite a watery uproar.

As I turned, I suddenly smelled your signature sweet scent - like cotton candy or the best birthday cake anyone ever made for you. And there was not a person in sight. It only lasted a moment but I knew you were there.

Just as I watch for the angel numbers 11:11 to appear and as they did this morning, I know you are letting me know, as best you can, to do my very best and to have faith that you are both nearer than I can imagine and will take me to you so very soon and forever.

Thank you, my angel, my True Love, my soulmate, my little sweetheart. I love you with all my heart and soul.

Woken

Little sweetheart, I've been listening to a new show on WFMU. It's on late at night, the overnight 3-6 Wednesday into Thursday, so I'm usually not awake when it's on and only listen back later on the station's archive. It's Olivia's show and very interesting not only for tracks she selects - a mixture of drone and experimental and pop and spoken word - but for the live sound collages she's mixes live on air. I started listening a few weeks ago.

Anyway, today I was really tired and sad and lay down for a nap. I had an earlier show of hers on and a song woke me. It was Fairport Convention's version of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes".

Little sweetheart, I remember you singing a bit of it when you & I were together in your room in Boston and it always makes me think of you. But honestly I'd never really heard it in its entirety - like heard the words. It made me cry and long for you. And also made me feel that you were near.

Please help and guide me, little sweetheart. And take me to you as soon as heaven will allow. There are so many things only you know and can help me with. I know you try as best you can to reach me. And I feel that hearing this today was another one of them.

Quietly napping, you woke me so that with no else to distract me I might know what you wanted to say and keep it safely in my heart.

I love you, my gorgeous angel. Forever.

Across the morning sky,
All the birds are leaving,
Ah, how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire,
We'll still be dreaming.
I do not count the time
Who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
Sad deserted shore,
Your fickle friends are leaving,
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go,
But I will still be here,
I have no thought of leaving.
I do not count the time
Who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
And I'm not alone,
While my love is near me,
And I know, it will be so, till it's time to go,
So come the storms of winter,
And then the birds in spring again.
I do not fear the time
Who knows how my love grows?
Who knows where the time goes?

The True Way

Seven years ago, little sweetheart, I woke with you for the last time. You were curled up in my arms with your little feet around my ankles, your hot water bottle pushed off the side of the bed to the floor, warm enough now in an embrace. You kissed me and we lingered together for an hour.

A beautiful day, warm and glistening and filled with love and promise and adventures together, that ended in tragedy and left me forever broken.

I look for you everywhere and seize upon anything that might be a sign, a trace of you trying your best to comfort and guide me.

This morning, after saying our prayer and stroking the things that lay upon your pillow, talking to you softly, after texting your parents and just sitting inconsolable on the bed in tears, I rose and walked to the kitchen to make coffee and begin the day, however sadly, however lost. There upon the counter was an inexplicable ring of condensation. A circle of tiny water dots like a speech bubble in an illustration waiting to be filled in with some message. At its outer edge the sun glanced off the surface in a kind of arrow, as if to indicate directions.

I can't know the day. I can't know the hour. I can't even know why I remain. But I must listen quietly and simply have faith that someday, some hour, sometime (and may it be soon), I will be returned to you.

I've a picture of us, a selfie before people called them that, of you and I, our faces pressed together, your lips upon my cheek, standing within a stone circle at the edge of the world - the end of the Sheep's Head peninsula out beyond the lighthouse on our trip to Ireland.

Moments after it was snapped and we began trekking back to the village, we got lost, taking a wrong turn and losing the path. It was becoming dusk and I got worried. I ran ahead looking for a fork that would return us before it got dark and we were truly lost. You cried out, because I was walking too fast for you, and I turned. When I did I saw a sign - only visible from this direction, only able to be perceived because I was turned away from the rogue path, only visible because I was turned to face you - an arrow that showed me, showed us the way. The True Way.

And that way is you, my little sweetheart.

In all things, how you have saved and changed and guided me, from the day I met you to this very moment when I can't touch or see you, when I ache to do so, still you find a way to help me find the way. Ever grateful, I love you forever. And trust my soul, which is best equipped to hear you, which is itself half of your own, to perceive your guiding presence and lead me home. For home is you.

With all my love forever. Forever, Summer. Forever, my little sweetheart. Forever. 

Mixed

Little sweetheart, sometimes I don't tell you about things that upset and worry me. At least not here. Sometimes when I lay in bed talking to you, I will. I actually feel much better when I do or after I do, so maybe it's not altogether a terrible idea to say something here and now.

There was such a mix of good and bad things yesterday, little sweetheart, that I'm confused and, as always, need your help. A wonderful thing happened in the afternoon and a rather disturbing thing last night.

The weather keeps fluctuating wildly from the arctic and miserable to the warm and lovely. Yesterday was the latter. I had a lot of work to do in the morning and early afternoon but I already knew the forecast and that the nice weather was going to turn overnight, so I was determined to get in a run before it got too late. I've been laid up a couple of times for extended periods last month with the flu and then a severe cold, so I haven't been running as much as I'd like. It was a bit overcast but unseasonably warm, so I set out along the river. I like coming across birds during my run. I always think of you when I hear their sweet little songs and usually say "hey, guys" to them as I pass. On my way back along the bit of boardwalk that runs very close to the water's edge and ultimately connects to points of the shared pedestrian and bike path, I came to a clearing. No one was around. No trace of a single person passing by. But in that moment I got the strongest sense of your presence because your scent - that sweet smell of you that is like cotton candy or birthday cake - came flooding forward. I'll sometimes get a whiff of it like this, turning onto an empty aisle in the grocery store or passing a stretch of sidewalk. Sometimes someone may be passing, so it's possible they share a soap or shampoo or fragrance similar, but other times like this, there isn't anyone remotely nearby and all I can think is that somehow you are. You're making your presence known to comfort and encourage and guide me. It fills me with love and gratitude and joy. It made my whole day so much lighter. So much so that I hate to even mention the darker thing that happened later that night.

I love when you come to me in dreams, little sweetheart. I pray for your visits and am so heartened by them. But sometimes disturbing things happen. Often you comfort me or things are simply as they were and I am grateful and relieved and returned to your side where I belong. But other times, you don't seem to know me or remember and it fills me with anxiety and fear.

This was one of those kind of dreams but even worse. You were simply indifferent. I felt crushed and so alone. And I wondered if I was doing something in my waking hours that had upset you, that was wrong, that you were angry with me.

Please help and guide me, my darling girl. Please forgive me when I do wrong and point me back in the right direction. Please don't give up on me. I need you so. Help me and please remember and love me. I need you. I hope you can hear me. I know you can. Just help me to know the right way forward so that I honor and do as you will. I love you with all my heart and soul.

Please come again and let me know your mind and wishes. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever... xM

Mighty Forces

Little sweetheart, it's been a funny month. I've felt so fragile - ill for parts of it and anxious about things during other days.

These weeks and those few ahead are always so loaded for me because of the bitter anniversaries they bring around the terrible tragedy of your passing. Our last days, which I couldn't possibly have known for being such at the time but feel somehow in retrospect full of ominous signs. I remember even resisting saying "the last day" the very first time I began to utter it, still in the hospital praying for your recovery. And as March approaches I feel all this so keenly yet again.

Help me to keep focused on the things you have planned for me, little sweetheart. Please help me honor and listen for you. Please help me hold your memory and sense your guiding presence because I know you will lead me, as you always have from the moment you found me, the way I'm meant to be going - our way. Together.

Reach for me, my darling girl. I will follow.

With all my love... xM