Note: The music composition featured in this post is one Michael wrote to score a video portrait I filmed of a dear friend and colleague in the 2000s. Last year, I used it to accompany Doc Malik’s sarcastic reading of my satirical piece 50 Reasons to Give Your Child the COVID Shot. It was untitled at the time of Michael’s death, so I chose “Every Living Thing Must Grow” from a list of prospective titles he had compiled over the years.
For our thirty-fourth anniversary—my third without Michael—I decided to transcribe the letters I scribbled in a Monet journal my dear upstander friends and consolers Mickey Z. and Alicen Grey sent me along with several books on grief. The visceral experience of handwriting the words as they tumbled out while speaking directly to Michael salved my sundered heart even as it wrenched more cathartic tears out of me. This is my first time revisiting these letters since writing them two years ago.
My journey through grief has taken torturous twists along its tortuous path, but there have also been surprising bursts of beauty, kindness, and love.
I will soon be sharing the greatest of those in what I feel may be the concluding chapter of the book I hope to publish in the coming months, Ain’t No Sunshine When He’s Gone. Below is a sneak peek of the cover I designed (I may or may not tweak before publication).
Writing, assembling, editing, typesetting, and publishing a book takes time. I have other books in the works as well, but this one is demanding completion first. Your support makes it possible for me to focus on more intensive, ambitious projects, and I am especially in need of your elevation right now.
My Founding Members will receive a signed, personally inscribed copy of this book once it is published as will any Angel supporters who donate $500 or more. Thank you for being a Patron of the Hearts 💕
Letters to My Beloved
Friday, August 9, 2024, 12:49 am
My dearest Michael,
Hello, my beloved. It has been nearly three agonizing weeks since we were parted. We did not even have an opportunity to savor a final farewell kiss to bid goodbye, to hug one another with all our ferocious might.
Oh, how I miss your enveloping embrace; your gentle kiss; your “Ni-night, I love you;” your breakfast kiss and “Thank you;” your perfectly timed inside jokes, observations, insights, & quotes that made me erupt into laughter; your sharings of treasures you found while I was sleeping; the sound of your voice as you read books, articles, memes, quotes, your writings, and everything else you thought I would appreciate.
I just finished listening to the audiobook of A Severe Mercy. I sobbed throughout the final chapters, at the end wailing so hard I gave myself a migraine. It wasn’t the book I was wailing over, although that added its own layers of bittersweet grief not only because of the heartbreaking story itself but because I remember with poignant nostalgia how we read that book together and saw our own eternal love reflected in the pages documenting Van & Davy’s perfect oneness.
Our favorite book at the time of our marriage, A Severe Mercy established the template for our own shining barrier against the world and anything that might fissure our own indivisible oneness. With your tender, fragile heart, you read the pages capturing Davy’s fatal decline in broken words punctuated by sobs, having to pause nearly every sentence to summon the strength to read the next one.
That is what my life feels like now—one wailing sob to the next with little breaths of recovery in between as I muster the strength to live on without your physical presence beside me.
Van wrote letters to Davy after she departed, and I just had the idea to do that myself using this lovely Monet journal Alicen and Mickey (my upstanders) sent along with thoughtfully selected books on grieving.
I sat down at the dining room table and opened up the journal, two green ribbons falling from the center as I opened it to them. Rusty immediately started “helping” (“I’m helping, Mama!”) me with the ribbons and the journal. I was afraid it was going to be impossible to write anything, but he eventually grew bored after I hid the ribbons underneath the journal, and he curled up on the chair behind my workstation.
Thanks to my mom’s suggestion, I printed up two photos of us and have them sitting in front of me along with various sympathy cards from family and friends on the dining room table. My mom was originally going to take them home, but she accidentally left them, and I’m glad. I need to process the images and make professional, framed prints (these ones are far too yellow & low on red or magenta due to our low toners1 inks for the latter), but these have been cheering reminders of your loving smile and our joyous love spanning nearly thirty-two years of marriage. The first image is one my mom took of us shortly after we wed and had moved into our first apartment, and the second one is from almost three years ago—when we hiked lower Table Rock.
Dusty just hopped on the chair beside me and meowed at me for petting. She no longer has you to notify me when she is staring at me adoringly from across the room (“My eyes adore you,” as you used to sing).
The kitties miss you, my sweet. The other day, I noticed Rusty sitting on the first picture of us while staring down at you in the second portrait. He was doing it for so long, I actually managed to record him doing it as well as taking an aerial shot of him gazing down at your image. It broke my heart into even smaller fragments as he studied your likeness with such intensity and for such a long, melancholy time.
Coffee keeps squeaking at me to go sit on your chair and cuddle with him, and then Sunny joins us so I can pet brush her cheeks with her favorite soft beard brush.
Dusty, Brownie, and Rusty have all been getting me to sit down instead of stand at my desk so they can snuggle with me while providing purr therapy. Smoky comes around for pets, as usual, every time I crouch or sit.
The keyboard protector you picked out for me shortly before your departure is working beautifully. Smoky can no longer walk back and forth across the keyboard and instead sits on either side for pets.
Every day, I find new treasures, physical and digital. Today, I went through one box in the garage that you’d haphazardly packed during our frantic move. I found a tangle of cords, adapters, Hot Wheels, model parts, tools, a few handwritten notes, and toys. I found one Cosmic Wimpout die along with three stickers for the game, a gallery exhibit invite from one of Greg’s shows, and the precious vintage Dinky Toys telephone booth and pillbox I’d gotten you as a gift. I also discovered the Dinky Toys International Road Signs box, only to find it empty. The signs had dumped out into the box, and I carefully searched for them and placed them in their slots. Sadly, three are still missing, but I hope to find them in another box. I feel so much loss, so many things and files I have not yet found, may never find, but I hold out hope that they will arise as I need them.
The most delightful discovery in that box were the tiny works of miniature art you created of ordinary objects. It would have been so easy to miss them and accidentally throw them away with the styrofoam peanuts and other detritus in the box. I had previously found the file folder with the tiny envelopes you created and placed it in a Ziplock bag.
In this box, I found a miniature roll of masking tape & an empty toilet paper roll. I hope to find the toilet paper roll (the full one) and brown paper bag from that series. What was it called again? Miniatures? And what was the scale? 1/64th, maybe?
It is amazing they survived the twenty-odd years being jostled about and tossed into a random box of somethings. They really should be in display cases befitting of their artistry and your meticulous attention to the smallest details.
Van had a vivid dream where Davy visited him, and he asked if she’d read his letters to him, which she had. Are you reading these words to you, my love? Can you help me answer the countless questions that have been multiplying daily, from the pragmatic (your laptop passwords) to the autobiographical (both yours & ours)?
Can you remind me which poem you said was your favorite in the Tao Te Ching? Was it 27, about wuwei which you had highlighted across all the translations captured in your Scrivener doc?
For your 22-character inscription, what would you think of this line from the Amber Books James Trapp translation you purchased a few months ago:
No-one is ever lost [to him] (27)
That is the line that felt right to me when I saw it. It is a reminder that, as much as I feel I have lost half of my being with your aching absence, no-one is ever lost. You are forever in my heart, and our love is timeless, deathless, eternal. And someday, we will be reunited, one again for eternity.
All my love, tenderness, & strength,
M
Tuesday, August 13, 2024, 9:29 pm
My dearest love,
I dreamt about you for the first time last night.
I walked into the kitchen and found you scrubbing pots and pans. I felt so ecstatic to finally be able to see you and talk to you. I remember basking in the joy of your presence and feeling so grateful to be with you again. I started asking you questions, including the one that has caused the most anxiety and stress, namely the password to your laptop(s). I remember grabbing a 5x7" index card to write down what you showed me on the screen as I knew this was a dream, but I did not realize that was a dream within a dream.
You showed me two passwords entered into dialog boxes, one a short version (something like “thrftw”) and a much longer version with the same letters. Neither of these are anything like any of our passwords, of course, nor do they match the password hint on your old laptop, but I am noting it in case there is some hidden significance to the letters.
Rusty is accompanying me as I write this. I keep finding him on the table staring at you in the picture I printed up of us from our hike in August 2021, three years ago now. Maybe I told you that already, I can’t remember. This is all flowing out uncontrolled and unedited like a waterfall of emotions pounding into the rocks of my loss below. You would say to follow that flow, to let Nature guide my grief and actions, and so that is what I’m doing.
I finally told C— about my [Substack] work, and he responded today. I think you would be deeply moved by his reply. Despite strong differences of opinion, he emphasized the importance of our friendship and said this changes that in no way. He wisely stated that life is too short to spend it “arguing with or divided from the people you love, simply because of the machinations of oligarchs”—a statement I know you and I agree wholeheartedly with.
I wish you could have read the comments on my post about losing you as you would undoubtedly have dissolved into tears repeatedly, as I did and continue to do.
It is a special tragedy that the love and appreciation by others you could have benefited so much from in life only arrived in arrears, too late for your self-image.
You only permitted a tiny number of privileged people—truly, only me—to see your tender heart and the full breadth and depth of your genius, and when we recognized that genius, you dismissed that judgment as being biased, so there was no way for me to override the self-critical tendencies baked into your fragile being.
But you had already liberated yourself from those, in part—by discovering Taoist philosophy and letting go of the concept of self itself. And now you are completely free of that ego, that false self, and you have become one with the Tao, as you so deeply longed to become.
I cannot let go of your self, though, and I hope you will continue to visit me in my dreams and in whatever other ways you feel would comfort me.
All the love I am capable of feeling—
M
Friday, September 13, 2024, 12:44 pm
I can hardly believe it’s been a month since my last entry, much less eight weeks on Sunday since your savage departure.
I still haven’t had a day without tears, although some days are milder than others, and I am less prone to outbursts—although I did have another one this morning after discovering your pocket knife lying on the edge of the bench in the entryway. That was one of the first things I looked for on July 21, perhaps because I expected it to be in your pocket and was afraid it had accompanied you on the gurney to the morgue. I even called the funeral home, and they checked your pockets—and then checked them again after I called back and said you were wearing cargo pants (shorts) and are they sure they had checked all the pockets? They had but checked again to nought.
I fumbled through the clutter on the end table where we keep the bowl of keys, the flashlight, your wallet, and other grabbables for going out, but I found no trace of the knife. Finally, I gave up trying to find it and ordered a duplicate from Amazon so I would have it for protection, as I knew you would want. I also ordered more pepper spray and a stun gun as I know you would want me to take precautions. I even considered taking jiutitsu classes but need to get my back x-rayed first and attend to the underlying injury as it still is not fully healed, whatever is wrong with my back.
And then this morning, I looked down and saw the black knife camouflaged against the black bench, perched on the edge, having hidden there for nearly two months. As this came at a moment when I was feeling the frustration of finding without seeking [I think I meant “seeking without finding”]—the USB plug for charging your Apple Watch, which I’d thrown into my purse before your service as a backup in case I needed to charge the bluetooth speaker before playing “Mosquito’s Last Meal,” and the plug for charging the bluetooth speaker—I was feeling the compounding of loss upon loss and the vulnerability of being out of control. I remembered the inscription I put on your marker, “No-one is ever lost,” and the accompanying phrase from the Stephen Mitchell translation [actually the James Trapp translation] of Chapter 27 of the Tao Te Ching, “Nothing is ever lost.”
And then I found your knife. I looked at your photos in the digital collage I have propped up on your boxes of hats and boots on the entryway bench, temporarily accompanied by your flag until the inscribed display box I ordered for it arrives. I also ordered photo prints of us and frames for both my mom and me as well as [our best friend]. I now understand your sentimentality as loss infuses objects with deeper meaning, and my past pragmatism was a luxury I can no longer afford in the face of your catastrophic absence.
I want to tell you about the beauty of the service, about the joy of reconnecting with so many friends and loved ones from our past, about the flood of tears wept for you not only by me but by all in attendance, about the appreciation for your wisdom and genius and creative output, about the love and respect and gratitude felt for you in arrears, about the appreciation affirmation you needed but never allowed because you feared rejection, disappointment, criticism …
You had no reason to fear, my love, as others have shown they appreciate you, your wise words, your music, your art, your tender heart, and your deepest essence—as I always knew they would, if you’d only let them see you.
The few precious souls you did let in over your life—none more so than me—did see, love, and value you and your work, as is evident in the poignant responses from friends spanning thirty-two years.
It is a particularly acute tragedy that you were not present to witness, to bask in, to soak in the unconditional love that flowed out for both of us at the service and in every kind word and gesture since July 21.
But perhaps you inhabit the source of that unconditional love now, and you know better than me its beauty and magnificent grandeur, its eternal and infinite nature, its indestructibility and inescapability.
You know, and you continue to remind me, No-one is ever lost. Nothing is ever lost.
I love you, Michael—now, then, and forevermore—
M
P.S. I forgot to tell you I found the USB plug and bluetooth charger cord (the latter attached, but the DC[?] part of the cord is so damaged, I had to throw it out, but I found a replacement in one of your 30 Spokes Leather pouches) in the entryway bowl, the last place I looked—but of course you always find things in the last place you look because you stop looking once they’re found.
Note: I left errors in my journal entries for verisimilitude and inserted relevant links.
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Toners was actually correct since it’s a laser printer.
