Where Are You?

Dear Pepsi,

Where are you?

It snowed today. I thought about how you were not a fan of snow unless you were in the woods running free. When we went to the trail off Evergreen Cemetery you would leap through the snow as if it was the surf at Higgins Beach. You would bury your face in a drift and emerge with snow powder decorating your face. One time we walked on a trail where the ice was covered by newly fallen snow and I fell hard on my hand. You stopped and waited for me, and I grabbed on to you so I could get on my feet. As the snow began to fall this morning I chuckled and mumbled, Pepsi made sure she got out before the first snow. Pandy; however, loves the snow and bolted out the back door this morning to the tree in the corner of the yard. Pearl likes it well enough but she is off kilter since you left. We all are. I feel your presence in the house and have to remind myself you are not physically here. I look for you and then realize you are not on the chair upstairs, or in the bathroom, or propped up on pillows on my bed. I can't shake the feeling this is a bad dream, that life without you is not an option. So I wonder, where are you?

Pandy ready for the snow

As I was leaving the house today a florist delivery truck pulled up. Immediately I knew the flowers were sent by someone hoping to comfort me and ease my pain. Craig sent a lovely arrangement that smelled like spring. People can be so kind. This evening I got a text from Sara next door asking if I was home - the girls wanted to bring me something. Kathryn and Rachel walked up the front stairs and handed me a plate of chocolate chip brownies and an envelope containing a card from the family and note Kathryn wrote on grade school writing paper. Our love was no secret and neither is the sadness left behind by your loss.

Kathryn's note

Dad is coming tonight. His flight was delayed by five and a half hours. If you were on the other end of that cross country flight the delay would have made him crazy. Sure, he was irritated but knowing you were waiting for him would have made it unbearable. Jonathan is expected tomorrow. We have so much adjusting to do without you. The past few nights I woke at 3AM, reaching for you. I find it difficult to fall back to sleep and end up watching a show on Netflix until my eyes get heavy. I wake up a few hours later exhausted. I feel suspended in motion, neither here nor there, and not really fully committed to anything. Except writing to you.

Dad won't have you to greet him this time

Since my mom died I have been trying to wrap my head and heart around death. And grief. Then Frank died in August. I have a card on my desk I intended to write to Georgette but three months later it is still there. It is neglectful of me, and I feel badly that the loss of someone so dear was pushed to the background; however, once you were diagnosed, I let everything I possibly could go by the wayside. All I wanted was you. All I could feel was you. Everything I did was in response to your anticipated departure. I was not sure if knowing you would go and still having you was better than a sudden and unexpected loss. Last Friday there was a fire at a warehouse in Oakland California. Artists and musicians lived there. It was also a fire trap. During a music event a fire broke out, which spread rapidly, engulfing the space in flames with little opportunity for people to escape. At least 35 people are dead, including Rena's friend Jonathan Bernbaum, her arch enemy from age 13 to 17, and then good friend. Theirs was a story of transformation and growing up and second chances. He was an internationally known VJ (something to do with electronic music performance). He also ran across our Jonathan at the airport in San Francisco when departing and arriving as he traveled the world to do his music. I thought about his mom, Diane, and the sudden shock of loosing her child. Not on one of his many plane rides or in a foreign land, rather a few miles from his childhood home. Not because of a terminal illness with a determined outcome. Is it better or worse for death to be drawn out or sudden? Either way feels like a slap in the face, one slap after the other. Mom. Frank. You. Jonathan B. Still I reach out for you at 3AM and I wonder, where are you?

Frank and I at China Camp

I am going to Cuba this month. It's a place I have always wanted to go, my 60th birthday present to myself. You were sick when I booked it, therefore it was to be a short trip, only 4 days. Even as I bought the tickets I was not sure I would actually go, it depended on your health. I hoped you would still be here, and then I would happily pass. Now that you are gone, Rena and I will make the trip. It will be warm and I will swim in the sea. We will ride in classic American cars and walk narrow streets in Old Havana and sit at cafes. I will press my hands against the old textured buildings and close my eyes to to absorb the colors. We will undoubtedly speak of you, shed tears and laugh as we recount funny Pepsi stories, of which there are many to choose from. My grief will accompany me. I might wake up at 3AM, unsure of exactly where I am. Perhaps I will reach for you, feel the hollow pit in my stomach and not be able to go back to sleep. I may look up the ceiling as images of you run like a ticker tape across my brain. I might think about my mom, Frank, or even Diane Bernbaum and if she too is awake with thoughts of her son. There is a vacancy sculpted by grief that registers a sequence of spaces with no utility or purpose. They are placeholders. I feel them in the dead of night. When I stare blankly into the afternoon silence. And I wonder, where are you?

Missing you darling Pepsi girl and so much love,

Mom