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