Yesterday Once More

Roslynn called me at 5:00 a.m. to tell me to get up, that you and Bridger were coming to the main house for coffee.

I got up right away…twenty…minutes…later.

I saw car light disappearing down the driveway and then I noticed the your note written on a styrofoam plate.

I went back up to bed wrapped in a blanket of loss. Instead of crying, I called Roslynn to register a formal complaint. Sadly, she was not expecting my call and had gone back to sleep. I fixed that right away.

There are so many things I wanted to say to you that I didn’t say.  If I were quicker, I would have said how honored I was that you and Bridger drove through the night to spend a few short days visiting us. I would  have told you you are even more amazing in person than I could possibly imagine from your blog. For one thing, you’re tall, with a statuesque bearing, and you look like you hike and take care of yourself. I love that you sang to the Carpenters, you and Roslynn, and that I worked up my nerve and didn’t sing a note.

You are so truly endearing and funny, such a good sport, and I love watching you relate to Bridger, who really IS darling and who put up with the company of us three women until the men arrived. He’s a great kid, even if he said Roslynn and I are like a pair of hand puppets!

I also would have said, too, that as scared as I was to meet you because I really have social anxiety, I stopped taking my anti-anxiety meds two days in because you are just that warm and friendly, just that easy to include that I didn’t need or want them. The whole family down to the last dog fell in love with you, and with Bridger.

I never would have imagined I could meet someone over Facebook and find that person so much more enchanting in real time. I must get off my computer more often!

So, before I botch this, let me borrow from Mary Oliver this beauty:

“The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.”
― Mary Oliver

We miss you my friend. We’re filling the void playing RockBand with Sparrow and Chris. It is a hollow victory that we get to use the guitars. Miss you and hope you made it home safely.

Keep daring greatly, my friend!  You and Debbie Simorte and Roslynn, too!