“Well there are no words, sweetheart”

“I suspected. Thanks for visiting me.”

“We both said our love would last forever.”

“I know Bette and it’s wonderful that every now and then you have some time with me, but I wish I could remember upon waking.”

“I’ve been told it would confuse things. What you have instead is the afterglow that will warm your heart when the grief becomes overwhelming. You must keep your mind open to it John.”

“I know, love. I know. It is so rejuvenating when you visit; I feel like a kid again. Remember how many times I said you bring out the boy in me.”

“There is no need to search for the fountain of youth it finds us when we fall in love.”

“Hey wait a minute Bette, how’d you do that I’m the writer here.”

“It turns out there was and is a writer in me all along and I discovered it here. Plato was right; we don’t learn we recall, we discover what is already within us.”

“That is amazing. Can you tell me more; like some inside scoops?”

“I’m afraid not hon, I am bound by a code of ethics and there is a lot I’ve yet to discover which for now is above my ‘wing’ grade.”

“I won’t press you love and anyway my time will come and I’ll be right there discovering with you.”

“Sooner then you think.”

“Is there something I should know?”

“I’m sorry, dear. There would be no way of you knowing that our time and your time are worlds apart.”

“To state the obvious.”

“I give you that. For me time is accelerated and the reason we don’t grieve over our loved one left behind is our reunion will happen in no time.”

“Doesn’t do me much good.”

“Now John don’t be that way.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be but you’re not the one dealing with the numerous places in my heart and mind where you are absent.”

“I know sweetheart and I dare not lecture but keep in your heart and mind the origin of the word ‘absent”; “to be away from”. I am elsewhere and not gone. Do not forget that.”

“I will forget that. You said I will, that it would confuse things if I remember our visit.”

“When you need the words you will hear them.”

“I trust you.”

“Never to be misplaced, my beloved John.”

“I see with my mind’s eye the sun is about to rise and that usually means I awake so our time will soon be coming to an end.”

“For now.”

“Can I embrace you, love?”

“We are my dear.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Every time I visit you we are one and those moments in your grief when you heart and mind quiets and tears are less a warmth will come over you. Know it is me, my love.”

Love To You All

I certainly don’t feel I’m at war with anyone but when and if I’m told to ‘move on’, for the lack of any better phrase, the ‘under siege’ mind set may be upon me.

I am aware of all the obvious: ‘we’re all going to die, Bette is not coming back, nothing to be done for it etc..,’the-I don’t want to know-part is the heart-breaker.

The insistence on a coup d’état with regard to anything normal has me up at night gathering forces for a revolution but to what end.

The minutes, hours, days are inexorable in their bleak mundanity and mock any thought of change.

An expression Bette and I never cared for ‘it is what it is’ seems at this time to apply but that doesn’t mean I have to go along.

Why not I wonder go crazy with grief: talk out loud to Bette, see her in places she has never left, play hide and seek in the grocery store, let her name follow mine in correspondence or let her go first, keep her toothbrush in the cup next to mine, Goodwill can do without her clothes, if I sit quiet and close my eyes and wait patiently she will ask what we’re doing for my birthday and I’ll say as always “it’s just another day” and she’ll say “Like hell it is, now I want the menu or we can go out and gift suggestions, pronto”.

She will become my imaginary friend and be as real as I want her to be.

So my family and friends let us not talk of moving on but rather of being still and let not her wisp of spirit elude me.

Love To You All