I just can’t sit around all afternoon waiting to cry (but I might anyway), waiting for the cold sunlit spaces to help me find a voice. I know what I would say. Our photographs are in the bedroom. I only need a few for the book cover. I dreamed again of how I’d help you heal and stay with us. Please stay longer, longer still, and then never go.
I know what I would say if tears could speak. You would have been 68 next Sunday and I’m working every day to make sure your gift is ready. You know what I am making. It is the collection of our stories. You’ve been silently helping me gather the words just right, but this minute, I’m quiet.
Life can be tended, kittens pet, litter cleaned, garbage taken out, laundry rotated, children kissed before I head into town to find the perfect place to sit and write, perfect for the spirit of this moment. Funny how one day’s writing space doesn’t fit the needs of tomorrow. I’m thinking about tomorrow and yesterday even as I listen to car doors shut and bits of conversation float past.
I’m thinking about how I sit alone so much more than I used to, as often as I did before the children arrived. I’m thinking how you would be sitting across from me today, now that the children are older. We’d eat soup, sip coffee and tea, eat cookies and there would almost certainly be a plan to discuss. There always was.