[PEOPLE ARE IN COSTUMES, SCATTERED. EVEN TODAY, THE DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN...

YOU LOVE HALLOWEEN. I WILL PASS OUT CANDY, WATCH A SILLY MOVIE, AND THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH MORE FUN LIFE WAS WITH YOU.]

Beautiful girl,

Finally got you a pink pen, darlin'. And I dyed my hair today --> dark brown. Almost black. It dawned on me that when we used to talk about hair and such, your least favorite qualities--somewhere between blonde & brown; something between straight & curly--were in fact MY qualities! So for the moment, I'm dark and curly. But you know me: I'm bound to let it do what it wants to by tomorrow...

You were that way, too, weren't you? Well...on occasion, anyway. Like when you lived up here with me, when Jake was just down the road. And you had those months--first waiting for and then mourning the loss of one of your luckiest loves. I didn't understand then how you could just go to work and come home, sleeping all the rest of the time. I didn't know where your smile had went most days, or how your already limited patience had become even more scarce. I get it now, though. Perfectly well.

The difference is that your transition then was that of a butterfly before it dreamt of wings. (I don't foresee the same fate for me now, nor would i welcome it: there's no flying away from this--and god knows I'd have never chosen to lose you.) I just hope that this new transition of yours helps you to become something even more beautiful and unique...though i can't imagine what that could be, or why the bloody fuck you needed anything more. We certainly didn't.

But yes, my hair is black, and yesterday i lost my wallet (but whatever, right?), and as of today, mama has her first tattoo, which is dedicated to you. And there's plenty more where that one came from. We're redefining, all of us, and done with the knock-off notion of permanence. At one point we may have believed in it, quietly and in the background, but we will be tricked no more.

Last night I spoke with mom and it reminded me how hard this really is. You forget sometimes once you get used to feeling hollow; become familiar with the constant sadness until it's almost a comfort. It's like breathing--you know you're doing it, but mostly there's no thought involved; no conscious effort or intention. Until you suddenly focus on it for a moment, and only then does it strike you as bizarre. But again, this isn't often.

God, i'm rambling. And neglecting my stupid homework. What I'm trying to describe to you is mom's sense of peace, and how seeing it made me feel farther from you than ever. Why can I not feel you or see you in my dreams?! Why can't I feel you in the air around me, or manage to convince myself that you'd hate to see me so sad--and then somehow even do something about it? I know it's all one day at a time, but still, all i've seen for the last 21 days are your unborn children; your unmatched future husband, who will never know how wonderful his life with you would have been. All I see is the look you'd get when you were watching a sad movie, or listening to a sullen song. It's that haunted expression that haunts me even more than your electric smile does, or your rogue tongue stretching over your cheek, or your explosive laugh, or your distinct style and taste and bright, dry humor. How you'd keep everything close to you--carry it around--but were never really afraid of losing anything anymore...

So yeah, still hard. Though Jake made my heart soar even as i wept when he told me that he knows you still exist somewhere, but are just too far away for us to visit you now. When I told him my sad glass story, he told me how he firmly believes that a person's capacity for joy is matched only by their capacity for sorrow.

["Your joy is your sorrow unmasked... The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." -Khalil Gibran]

Think of our ocean, and how it carved away gradually that beautiful cave in Davenport where you and i would so often go with our mochas in hand, or after a coupla bowls of clam chowda. It's the angry waves--the cold, dark, powerful flooding of rainwater--that carved out that hole with a one-track mind bent on drowning. But in the morning, when the tide fell back again, we'd look at the shiny quartz and limestone reflecting the sun-kissed sea. How lovely it had become! How the sight struck our hearts softly with awe, and left us grateful to be the ones to've seen...

Jake says that in this way you may have given us all a tremendous gift--though the sun has yet to rise in this new world of ours. That while you've carved out a hole in our hearts with the sharp edge of sorrow, leaving a great expanse in your wake, perhaps now we are capable of holding more joy than we otherwise could have fit in a whole lifetime? Yet still just a shadow of the immensity you embodied, even in a life so brief as yours.

["When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." -Khalil Gibran]

-L (10/30/10)