The tea

 Dear John,

I forgot to tell you about your mom!  It seems there was a leak in her basement window, and the basement got quite a bit of water in it.  It must have been sitting for some time, because mold developed.  I think she discovered it just before Christmas - E's husband took care of the leak.  E took the opportunity to round up a dumpster and start cleaning out the basement.  You were always wanting to get a dumpster and throw all her stuff away - this would have been the best Christmas present for you.

I guess all the girls went over the day after Christmas to sort through stuff and throw things away.  C didn't make it down - I guess there was a blizzard where she lives and they decided against travelling.  I offered to let them stay with us, though I am glad she turned me down.  You know how your family thinks that the 30 minute drive to our house might as well be in Chicago or Canada.  Anyway, some of the junk has been tackled.  Finally.  

It seems your oldest niece had a vision of you.  You were at your mom's house, and everyone was there to share a meal.  She saw you there in the kitchen, and sitting across from her.  You were radiating happiness and laughed along with everyone.  No one could see you, except your niece.  She said you joked around with her in the way you normally would.  And then you put your arm around your mom and comforted her.  She said you wanted us to know that you were watching over all of us, and were with us in all our moments - happy and sad.  She also said you were wearing a brown sweater and jeans.  I sent her a copy of the photo from her mom's house from the year she was born - the one I have on my nightstand...where you're wearing your brown cashmere sweater.  I wear that a lot now - it has holes, but I only wear it at home.  She said that it was the exact sweater in her dream.

Then a couple days later, your SIL K said she had a dream that she was talking to your dad.  She said that he said someone is missing a key and that it was in a little brown box.  It was shoved in a box in a closet or basement or something.  The funny thing is, I had a hard time finding the key to the watch safe.  I did finally find it, in the basement, in a corner of the closet.  Not in a brown box, but I think there was one in the closet.  Too bad G was only a couple months late in sharing that info with K!  I found the key early in December.

Your daughter is trying to manipulate me - she takes after you in thinking that I'm a pushover.  She wants to drive to school once or twice a week.  She would use it as an excuse to pick up her friend and stop at Starbucks on the way to school.  I offered her a deal that she could drive the car 3 days per week, 2 destinations per day.  That would include working on the weekends.  It was a generous offer - she could earn extra destinations by doing chores.  She could gain an extra day by petitioning the school to offer sharing or parking spaces.  She did not care for that deal, and seemed mad that I would even suggest it.  She told me I was acting like you.  I had to remind her that, regardless of what she thought, you and I were on the same page on a lot of issues.  We might fight over the details, but the overall philosophy was the same.  She still refused the deal - she thinks that if she manages the girls' soccer team, I will have no choice but to let her drive to school.  She doesn't know how I react when people tell me I have to do something...

I think I've caught you up on all the gossip...

Love,

A

52

Dear John,

Tomorrow would be your 52nd birthday. S and I will be getting a cookie cake to mark the day - aside from your mom's cream puffs, which she would always make for your birthday, cookie cake was your favorite. S wants the cake to read Deez Nuts, because she's a teen who thinks she's hilarious. I told her you wouldn't approve, but her argument was that you would think it was funny if YOU said it. That's probably true.

I have to go to court for work tomorrow. It's in the town where your sister lives. It's not far out of the way, so I will make a stop by the cemetery on my way back to work. Since I have to leave the state to do so, I can't take the state car. While you wouldn't approve of me using my own car for a work function, you would approve of taking the opportunity to get cheaper gas. So I guess it's a wash on that score.  

I don't even know why I keep going to the cemetery. I never went to visit my parents' graves...well, maybe once after my mom died. I know that only your body is there. If there is such a thing as a soul, yours would certainly not be hanging around there.  And yet, I feel compelled to keep going.  I guess I feel closer to you there, in that space.

I keep hearing Free Fallin' by Tom Petty on the radio - I feel like you speak to me through songs. Music was sort of our thing - you were always testing my knowledge of songs and artists.  The first gift you ever gave me was a Portishead CD.  I thought it was because you recognized that I liked them, but in reality, you got an extra free one with your Columbia music free trial.  You would play music to drown the ringing in your head. It used to annoy me beyond measure - I didn't want to hear blasting metal music when I was trying to watch TV or a video on the computer. Now S does it. I like silence. Unless I'm in the car.  

Your family, OTOH, is very much talking about birds as messengers. I saw a huge hawk out back the other week. It was on a tree in the cemetery and I could see it pretty clearly from 100 feet or more away. Then, a couple days later, we came home and there was a tiny hawk (maybe a falcon?) across from the garage. She was having a little snack out there. I wasn't able to get a photo of her, but I did get a picture of the remains of her snack. It looked like maybe a mourning dove. You used to tell me the mourning doves who would visit were my mom, coming to check on me. You thought the cardinals were maybe your dad or your grandma (or sometimes my mom). Even your sister K sent me a text to tell me that my hawk sightings were not coincidental - she said she's seen a lot of hawks since you've been gone.  They squawk at her a lot, so it makes sense that she associates them with you.

I hear that your aunt is in hospice care.  I don't know that I spoke to her more than once or twice.  She seemed nice - I don't think you much cared for her.  I know you actively disliked her husband.  She apparently has cirrhosis of the liver.  I am speculating on that, though there's no one I can ask how that came about.  Remember when your cousin's wife blocked me on Facebook because I argued with her about Covid being a government plot?  Good times.  She came to your funeral.  I didn't have much to say to her.  I think she spends a lot of time away from home, since her daughter and the grandkids are mid-state instead of up north.  

Anyway, I hope you are...I don't know...celebrating your birthday this year, for a change?  I am quite happy that you were born, and that I got to spend 20 years with you.  I wish we could have had more.

Love,

A

Incidentals

 Dear John,

Just got back from Aldi - you would have a stroke to see the prices of things these days.  $4 for a dozen eggs?  It wasn't that long ago that they were $0.78.  Might as well buy the organic free-range ones for $1 more.  Inflation is a beast.  But, we eat roughly 1/2 as much as when you were here, so the grocery bills haven't changed all that much.  

I keep trying to cook fatty meat in the oven.  You know what that means - the smoke alarm goes off every time.  Today it was a package of bacon.  Usually the max temperature is 450 degrees, but I guess that changes if there's too much fat.  Guess I will stick to the microwave for bacon, and the grill for steaks, because the oven is not cooperating.  And I definitely will not be turning on the broiler.  I will have to give it a good cleaning too, to make sure that there is no buildup on the oven walls.  I would use the oven cleaning setting, except that I know that too will set off the smoke alarms.  Maybe in spring when I can open all the windows...

S keeps telling me stories about her Spanish teacher.  I'm a little uncomfortable with how disrespectful S is being.  But since the teacher seems to regularly imply that she is stupid (I believe she called S "slow" in front of the class, which she is definitely not when it comes to school work and learning), I have a hard time justifying making S be more polite.  Anyway, the relevant story this week is that Senora R was widowed.  And within a year she had remarried.  They can't agree where to live, because she doesn't want to have to drive 45 minutes to work (from his house), and her house is too small for him and his kids.  But I am just astounded that one could move on so quickly.  I know people grieve differently, but here I am, almost 10 months later, still thinking of how you would appreciate this story or that movie or this dish I'm going to make.  I can't even work up the energy to go out and socialize with people, let alone meet someone new, date them, and decide to marry them.  I guess I'm really a Victorian when it comes to mourning.  A full year of staying home, with another 6-12 months of the minimum amount of socializing, and then maybe I'd be ready to...not move on, but at least not wish you were there with me all the time (or, ya know, waiting for me at home, if I'm being realistic).  I'm not going to do any dating anyway, but within a year?!  That's just crazy to me.  

I spent New Year's Eve with friends.  I really wanted to cancel at the last minute.  And I didn't really want to be there the whole time.  But it was good for me to go out instead of staying at home, alone, moping.  

We do have the cruise to look forward to - only a couple more months.  I think my sister's wedding was the last time I was on any kind of real vacation.  Well, maybe that weekend trip to Memphis counts.  Wisconsin doesn't really, but only because I didn't really want to go there.  

Your birthday is coming up.  Maybe that's why I'm feeling extra sad lately.  

Love,

A