Birthday Letter - November 2020

Poppi,

I am writing to you on my sunset walk with Charlotte. This is a new ritual for us since you have left. But, I know that you know.

We watch the light change, we feel the breeze, the seasons come and then they go. These small moments have become our moments, anchors to what is real and true and beautiful in the midst of such hardship and loss and sadness.

I was going to write to you about all the hardships, how losing you was impossible but how everyday has seemed to arrive with a new loss or struggle but I know you know those too. A hard year within an impossible year. So, I find anchors of life within the smallest moments. I drink my coffee slow, I feel the breeze, I watch a friends cheek as they talk, I hold a friends shoulder, I pet Char and Catsby on their foreheads slowly and repetitively. I wade in these moments. I go for sunset walks. 

I miss you so much. 

I miss talking with you, being held by you, loving you. The loneliness of this experience— to have held such a love and to lose you so young— often feels as infinite as love and loss. 

I miss sharing my thoughts and feelings and love with you. 

I don’t know why people are so comparative. Why they compare their thoughts, their actions, their art, their grief, their hearts to one another— instead of standing in awe of one another. In stead of standing in awe of self. Hello, Life. Thank you for fighting for 14.7 billion years to exist (of what we know of time), so I could stand here. In this moment. Thank you. 

People ache to be heard and seen and yet they won’t listen or watch, they often just speak louder. 

I have a dear friend who thinks I don’t see myself. They mean this as a gift to give— I don’t see the impact and beauty and love I give to the world. But, sometimes I think I have my own gifts to give because I don’t care if I am seen. I would rather be felt than seen. 

I would rather you were here and I could shine the light on you and I wouldn’t have to be seen. But, we don’t get these choices. 

I miss you so much. 

You have always held my heart and I have always held yours.

The depth of me was always within but I would have been too afraid to explore it without you. I am what I am because I had the chance to love you. I am what I am because I had no choice in losing you. The universe delivers the beauty and the brutality and they are intimately intertwined in a dance of life and death, the footwork of love and loss. 

I have learned to not spend time imagining the future because it arrives in the most unimaginable ways each day. But, the truly terrifying part of the future, is that you will never be there to greet me. This is why I hold the here and now and why I can’t raise my chin to the horizon. If I did that, I would see the infinite void within each day, not having you to share each of these moments with. I can face so much but I cannot stand and look and not see you there, ever.

I know you are always here. But, right now, I am talking about there.

Thank you for enveloping me in your love always. Thank you for such a strong love it was never just you and I held within our relationship, our love, our friends + our families, they have always been a part of this love. They always will be. You are so loved. I am so loved. I know this. I see this. I feel this. 

And, yet, the infinite burden remains. 

Please always envelope me.

Please always envelope them.

I was told the gift of my life was loss. It is such a hard life to walk. And, you, you have always been a gift. 

You are the gift of my life. 

I have always loved you.

I always will.