We never were big on holidays, you and I.After our 5th year together we started to keep it simple. A nice meal, candles lit, late afternoon, A walk before food prep and then a movie at night…. You made everything special, the table setting, food placement, drinks made, even appetizers. All thought and planned out the weekend before. No rushing, to work. We’d wake up I’d make my great aunts coffee cake bring up coffee and then we’d both send out holiday texts and emails. You usually saying “Done” before me… And then subsequently turning over and falling back to sleep.

My family has grown up without me during the holidays. I stopped going home on Thanksgiving somewhere in my twenties… and at 61 – there’s an annual yearning for family closeness…but not on holidays… when it’s go go go and family’s act out – but always held together by the love of the familiar. That all is right in the world with these people in my world – that painting, background that keeps you thinking you will always he here.

And now you are gone my love a year and a half. I have no illusion that I will live forever or that everything will be all right forever – Loss, pain, ptsd and free fall from a life planned till death – has left me aware to the bone how temporary this all is, life, love, Maybe if one is present to the nothingness of life, time, etc. every a moment of loneliness can be peaceful, lovely a chance to appreciate the self, the universe, the earth, sky, dirt, garden, food, ice, twinkling toes… the candle lit on our bedroom alter, The sun shining through the blackout drapes…

Here I sit in bed, pets between my legs, grateful to be alive, grateful to be healthy, grateful to love that you, my honey and I shared and like a slingshot it cascades me into the present – without you…with “you” but solitary. And yet willing to hold opposing emotions in my cupped hands gently letting them fall though my fingers as I wash my face.

I love you.