Stevie,

It's the 19Th and I didn't go to the cemetery. I was feeling awful about it until I got to Murray and Barb was standing there holding up the proto for one of your t-shirts.

I cried because I missed you so much in that moment and I cried because I felt like you were there with me even if I couldn't make it out to the cemetery to be with you.

Tomorrow is my birthday, I think I will wake up early and take some flowers to your grave site, sit and have a long talk with you under a great big blue sky. I would wear you t-shirt but I wore it all day today and it is sweaty and smelly.

I took your designs, the ones you wrote on some note paper a while ago. I copied them, darkened them up and barb compressed them in a software program she has. She printed them on some overstock she had just so I could see the print quality. I am embarrassed to say I was poo-pooing the digital printing versus screen printing, it just seemed like cheating and I thought it would look cheap.

I am eating crow while I write this, they turned out wonderful and I can not wait to see them on the little kids t-shirts I bought. I also bought some mini canvas bags too. Are you ok with this?
It is hard to know because sometimes you got so pissed when I stole your designs, some things you just wanted to be yours.

The reason I am using these is because I want a part of you to be everywhere, if you are hoping to just fade away I am not going to let it happen, I can't.

Allison lost her baby. She is going to have surgery tomorrow, stay close to her if you can she is scared. If the baby was a girl she was going to name her Stevie... She misses you.

Allison has been sending me little emails since you left. It is so sweet that she is trying so hard to make sure I am Ok. She tells me that she talks to you sometimes and every once in a while she will turn on the radio and a song that reminds her of you will come on and she feels like it's you telling her you are thinking about her too.

This is so damn weird writing to you on a computer pretending you can hear me, wishing I was writing to you in college instead of heaven. Maybe heaven is a kind of college, maybe they have an awesome food science program and you are inventing new things for us to eat here. Could you whip up a great cheese cake that has no calories in it and actually helps you burn calories while you lay in the bath and read?

Well this life without you is a great big university I am lost in. I am naked and can't find any of my classes. There are exams in every class that I am not prepared for and no matter how hard I study I can't seem to learn what it is I most want to know.

Tonight find me in my dreams, bring a sweater for me because I am cold. Take me by the hand and to the class I need to be in, sit with me while the old man at the podium explains it all to me.
Whisper all the answers to the questions on my test.


If you were here I would kiss your whole face and tell you over and over how much I love you.

I love you with all of me, all of me,

Mama

Fairy dresses.

I took a picture of your fairy dresses today. When we first moved here you made little clothes for fairies out of the flowers in the backyard, these were skirts.

The moon is so incredibly bright and full. I just came in from looking at it and talking to you. I feel you close by again. It isn't a kind of close I am use to. What my physical body wants is to be next to you, to feel your warmth, smell your skin, hear your voice. My spirit knows you are here, I just wish I could be happy with that, believe it without doubt, and be comforted.

I am reading a book called "There is no Death" by Betty Bethards. It is a small and self published, Veronica gave it to me. Even though there isn't anything in it that I have not already heard it is still comforting. She lost two sons, surviving that alone means she must understand something I do not.

She believes that our bodies are just suits we wear while here on earth. They help us get a job done. While we are here we are working and learning but it isn't real, it is all an illusion of some kind. The real "Life" happens when we once again shed the suit and go back home.

Is that what happened? Did you shed that suit of yours so that you could go back home and be done with all of this?

In the book Betty writes that we simply slip out of our bodies and experience a beautiful dream that we do not have to wake from . We are reunited with beings we love and we are so very happy.

I like that.

She says that when we grieve we don't really grieve for the person who has gone home because deep inside we know where they went. We grieve and cry for ourselves because we are left behind without them and long to go home too.

She is right.

I wish I could close my eyes and see where you live, what you are doing, and know how happy you are.

You would be wearing a pink sweater and your hair would be grown out, long a wavy, the ends curling. Your cheeks would be warm and pink and you would be wearing the cutest shoes or maybe your chucks...no, cute shoes in heaven you could wear any kind of shoe you wanted because you wouldn't have to worry about flat feet or falling down.

I think you would be surrounded by books, maybe you found a library that goes on and on and never ends. You would have a tall coffee with caramel sauce and whip cream and a big bowl of fat red cherries because in heaven every fruit is always in season.

You would spend your days traveling not just from country to country but from planet to planet. I want to believe you wouldn't be shy but I feel like you still would be. I loved that about you, how you kept yourself private, you made people come to you.

I hope you are laughing and being silly. I hope you talk to angels and to God. I hope you know how very loved you are.

Do you know Aly had a dream that she was at an opening of mine, it was a show full of the cutest things, there was some kind of film playing in the middle of the room. She said she just kept thinking "Oh my God Stevie would love this" She said she was sitting next to you in a chair with her head on your shoulder saying, "I wish Stevie was here, why isn't she here?" and you answered "Yes, why isn't Stevie here?"

I am hoping that dream was about Tangerine. I wish you were here doing this with me, sometimes I think you are...I am going to make it wonderful Stevie, a place you would love, I want you to be proud of me, you should be here telling me if the blue is too blue and if there is enough room for all four tables.

Yesterday I was buying a mannequin and I talked to you all the while. Damn, is it me or is it you? Is it us, can it be us...I want it to still be the two of us doing these things.

When I look up at that full moon everything solid falls away and I can imagine an endless universe where you must be. Maybe you are attending the birth of a star or counting comets. Maybe you are exploring galaxies or visiting your star at the knee of Hercules. What I wish most is that while I am looking up at that moon you are looking down at me and remembering...

I love you Stevie so much, so very much, it is an infinity kind of love,

Mama

An invitation home...

I found these photos they were all taken on April 19th...it was a beautiful day, I think heaven was waiting...

Listening...

I had to go to Pleasant Hill today to pick up some fixtures for Tangerine, I plugged in the Ipod, put the ear thingy in my cell and headed down the driveway. When I got to the corner I turned up the volume and let the Ipod shuffle. The song that came up was Death Cabs "I'll Follow you into the dark"

And the soles of your shoes are all worn down The time for sleep is now It's nothing to cry about Cause we'll hold each other soon The blackest of rooms If Heaven and Hell decide That they both are satisfied Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs If there's no one beside you When your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark Then I'll follow you into the dark


A friend of ours sang this song for Stevie at her funeral. It was one of her favorites, she loved Ben, he rocked her world.

I started to cry even though I had gone through the trouble of putting make up on, not something I usually do (put on make up, not cry). I must have been a sight driving down the road with mascara and tears running down my cheeks, my nose red, and singing at the top of my lungs fully animated.

When the song was over I turned the volume all the way down and started talking to Stevie.

I said,

"Hey Stevie I need to talk to you.
I want to believe that song came on because you wanted me to hear it. I am trying so hard to listen and at times like this I think I can hear you. I want to believe it is you and not the beginning of some degenerative mental illness. Isn't it strange that the very part of me that can hear you is the part of me I trust the least."

"Missing you is so hard, it feels like torture but it would be worse if I couldn't miss you. The only thing that can fix my broken parts is having you here next to me in this car telling me to turn the music back up and stop talking."

"If God were to tell me I could have you back but I would never get to see you because you would be too busy going to college, making friends and living a life that belonged only to you then I would agree."

I thought I heard her say "That is what I am doing mom, it is what I am doing" It felt urgent and I said, "The difference is that I don't really know that's what's happening, I feel like I hear you but I am not sure, I need to be sure, you have to make me sure. You and God have to find a way to tell me that I can not explain away."

Then I told her that I had so much in my heart I wanted her to know. I told her I was sorry I was never patient, that I yelled too much, that I was flaky and was late picking her up from school when I knew it made her afraid.

I told her that I was sorry that I didn't listen to her enough, didn't play more and that I didn't try hard enough to save her.

I thanked her for choosing me, for loving me, for letting me be her mother and for being my daughter. I told her I would do it over and over just to know her, I can't imagine a life of not knowing her.

I thanked her for teaching me about love and compassion as I cried and cried.

When I got to my destination I had to pull myself together, I had to dry my eyes and look as normal as was possible. I was finished with my errand and back in the car pretty quickly, I looked at the clock and it was 11:11. I put the ear bud in and left the parking lot. When I got onto the freeway I turned up the volume. The Ipod never got shut down so it just began playing.

It was Iz's version of somewhere over the rainbow, another song from the funeral, and one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful songs that was ever overplayed. I love Iz's soft and soothing Hawaiian voice and the sound of his little ukulele.

I looked up to the sky to tell Stevie I loved her and there was big heart made of clouds right over me. I watched it as it followed me all the way home.

When I got home I told Steve about it and he told me that he woke up thinking about her and wrote about her this morning. He said it feels like a day that she is so close, like she is trying to tell us she misses us.

I felt the same way, and it was a whole day of talking to her.

Just a little while ago Steve called me and said "You have to come outside" I almost fell over, the sky was so pink and I don't mean sunset pink, there were big pink clouds all around, it was everywhere. I just kept saying "I am right here Stevie, I am right here with you." The sky was beginning to change and I didn't want to forget it so I ran in the house and grabbed the camera. The photo's do not do that magnificent sky justice.

When I went back into the house it began to rain, only for a few minutes, big fat drops. I stood out under it and let it fall on me and thanked her for working so hard.