So here we are...the 19th.

My mind wants to race back to this moment in time two years ago, the synapse bridge has been built and it is an easy leap but I can't or I am going to try not to at least.

The memory of that day is as painful in this moment as it was then.

What I have to do is create a new bridge...

I'm not sure how to do that yet so I will have to stay as numb as I can today.

There is no forgetting any of it really.

Maybe forgetting isn't the answer but surviving the remembering is.



Stevie,

I am up with the sun this morning, I waited for you last night but instead of a visitation I had a deep restful nights sleep. Maybe God is offering a consolation prize but I will keep waiting anyway.

This morning I am going to clean up, open the store for Colleens class, run over to Joe's and buy every Daffodil they have, then I will go to Micheal's and buy and armload of yellow silk tulips. I will talk to you on the long, long drive to Oakmont, cry all the way up the hill, and find a way to accept that all this is real as I cover your body with flowers.

I listened to three people who claimed to have died, gone to heaven, and returned to tell about it. They all said that they didn't want to come back because heaven was so beautiful; the colors intoxicating, the sound of music transcending, the feeling of pure love and peace overwhelming. the experience changed them forever.

On the other side there were beings of light, loved ones, and the presence of a God they could not describe without reverting back to their own religious frame of reference. They were all told it wasn't there time, that they still had work to do and were sent back. Every person felt that had a message.

I listened to other people tell stories of angel sightings, visitations from the other side and messages left on answering machines, tape recorders and in the form of orbs and streaks of light on film.

Every well meaning person I know promises me that you are someplace better than here, at peace, in heaven, waiting for me. They are confused because I can't simply believe that and feel comforted. If it were their child they would be standing in the same place I am, no matter what church they belong to.

Yesterday I was in your room placing a beautiful vase of tulips that Teresa sent me next to your picture and I yelled at you. I said, "Damn it Stevie, I don't care if you are having a party with Julia Child every night, I don't care if I bum you out, you must come and see me and tell me you are OK, you have to, don't leave me here alone to go crazy with grief."

It is the first time I felt angry. I am not angry at you, just frustrated because I feel that I have been waiting so long, holding onto bits and pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit together. I gather signs, and coincidence, and make a story out of something that moves me not because it is real but because I need so badly for it to be real.

I must have been on a roll because I had it out with God that day too. The things I wrote in my journal I won't try and write here. I wrote word after word, page after page until I was empty. It all comes down to faith and I am tired of faith, tired of trying to hold onto a belief that is betraying me.


I know I am suppose to wake up on a morning like this and thank God for another day, watch the sun come up, marvel at how the trees that have filled in with magical shades of green, the hills have been covered with a downy coat of grass, and count how many birds have found there way into the garden this year.

I did this but I also listened to how quite the morning was, and how lonely this place is when the person you loved best isn't here, sleeping in her bed, dreaming of coffee and sweet faced boys who sing about tangerines and trampolines.

A color leaves the spectrum, everything is still beautiful but it has changed.

Anthony spent the night, he is sleeping on our sofa. Dad, Noah and Aly are sound asleep. In an hour this house will be noisy, I will cook breakfast, Dad will start hammering away at the wall and door he is building so I can move back into my old studio. It will be another day for everyone else on this planet but it will be a wormhole in time for me, just a visit, no ability to make the changes I desire.

Noah, Aly and I watches a documentary on Time Machines. Aly didn't want to watch it she thought it would be too cerebral and she hates physics. I made her press "Play" and about ten minutes in she got up and stomped into the kitchen, angry because she couldn't get it. I followed her and explained to her that time and space were another dimension that would could see or follow with our five senses but it was real and it operated like a membrane or a piece of fabric and if we could find a way to manipulate it (the planets do all the time) then we could create a little tunnel, a short cut and move through time and space in a different way than we do now.

She got it. She is so smart Stevie but she gets frustrated too easily. There is a moment when you hit a wall, the trick is realizing that it isn't a wall as much as it is a door. Yesterday she walked through that door.

It made me think that I am doing the same thing...I am stomping my feet and wailing at God because I have hit a wall. I am trying to feel around in the dark for the door sweet girl but my Aly-apple didn't fall far from the tree...

I am not giving up, I am just circling Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's wheel of grief, she never said how many times you would visit each of those places and for how long but I am far from finished.

I am rambling because I don't want to face the day...I am a big sad baby.

Bunny of mine, twenty four months doesn't mean a damn thing. You still have all of me. Today I am yours take me where you want me to go, show me what you need me to see, teach me how this has to be. You can yell at me if you want.

I put the fountain were you told me to, I will turn it on today and maybe if I can get myself to do it I will put new plants in the garden. You hated gardening...I tried so hard to get you out there but you just were not a fan of dirt and sweaty labor.

It is inevitable, the day must begin, another day...

Stay close to me sweetness.

Mom