I can see you now, quite clearly. Well, not really, of course. But as I stare at this brick wall, up against my terribly uncomfortable cot, I picture you. Somewhat dazed and groggy from lack of sleep, make-up smeared eyes brimming with so many unshed tears, you’re touching your map again. Running your hands across the smooth paper, imagining the mountains, and the dirt, and the people, tracing the roads and dips and rivers. Counting miles, and dreaming of where I am. Seeing your frail, beautiful form, the lithe body of a dancer, hunched over like an old drunken traveler, makes my heart want to rip itself in two. I want to say your name, like I have so many times, awake at night and in my sleep. I want to stroke your hair and touch your face and hold you. And be there. But it’s the one thing I can’t do.

As you start to cry again (sob, really) I feel awful, awful, awful. You glance at my picture, one of many you try to keep near yourself all the time, when lord knows it only makes it worse, and you are… ashamed. Of what? Of me? Of yourself, for acting like you’ve lost a loved one, when really I’m so very much alive for now, and you know it? Oh, don’t be, darling. Don’t feel that way! You’re loved! With a sudden unexplainable sense of urgency, I climb out of that uncomfortable thing, which cannot fairly be called a bed. I don’t know how, or even really what drives me, but I end up out of that old shack (which cannot fairly be called a house, or hospital, either) under the stars. I run and run and run under those stars, until I can go no further. I don’t even feel my battered and beaten body protesting. Perhaps it doesn’t. I throw my arms wide, and laugh. I’m panting and coughing as well, but somehow the only thing I consciously notice is that I’m laughing. And I’m hoping and praying, too. For you.
That some angel may come your way and guard your door at night

And that the sun always shines for you

And that the birds sing to you each and every morning

And that the trees give you enough shade when the sun is perhaps just a bit too hot

And that the wind always blows with you, and never against you

And that the stars light up your nights

And that the crickets play you songs so you drift quietly off to sleep

And that your smile will light your face aglow once again

And that your peals of laughter will once again resonate through all of your house

And that you may again find your happiness, whatever or whoever you were always looking for

And that you know, in the end, you were loved to the moon and back, and still are, and still will be, forever.


I see you once more. Your eyes are dry. Something has lit up in them. You stand, walk shakily, down the hallway I too once walked down, past all of the pictures for once and towards the one thing that will always tie you to me. As you enter that room, and see that wonderfully tiny beautiful thing, swaddled in that blanket my grandmother knit last year, your face breaks out into that old grin I’ve been longing to see. Picking her up, you hold her, as I would have held you. And you sing that lullaby, the one I sang to you the night your father died. But I don’t notice this nearly as much as I notice that smile. Stunning, wide, endearing. And it’s one other thing, unlike the others you’ve been doling out lately: Honest and real. My chest swells, and tears are now running down my own face.

And I know somewhere in my heart, that you’ll live on and on, and be fine, and I’ll live on in you somewhere.

So with this last thought, so comforting to me, I lie down in the tall grass, staring up at the stars that are hung above your head, too, and breathe a happy, shaky breath. And smile one last shaky smile.

Eyes closed, I whisper to the thick night air.

“Until I see you again, love.”