messaged in a bottle
I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I can almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away.
I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier in Garibaldi. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sunlight. I am struck as I see you leaning against the marina rail. You are stunning; I am stunned, I think, as I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when I think you’ll turn to me, you begin to fade. I think to myself... "Do you know him?" It’s a simple truth. "Better than my own heart."
I stop before I can reach you to take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, you cannot return my embrace, yet I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again.
I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, miss how you protect me. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be. But then, as always, the mist starts to form as we stand close to one another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us.
I feel my throat begin to close and my eyes well up with tears because I know it is time for you to go. The look you give me at that moment haunts me. I feel your sadness and my own loneliness, and the ache in my heart that had been silent for only a short time grows stronger as you release me. And then you spread your arms and step back into the fog because it is your place and not mine. I long to go with you, but your only response is to shake your head because we both know that is impossible.
And I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away. I find myself straining to remember everything about this moment, everything about you. Your voice echoes in my ears and the gulls cry, the briny scent of the marina, the wind in my hair... these never fade.
Where are you? And why, I wonder as I sit alone in my darkened house, have we been forced apart?
I don't know the answer to these questions, no matter how hard I try to understand. The reason is plain, but my mind forces me to dismiss it and I am torn by anxiety in all my waking hours. I am lost without you. I am soulless, a drifter without a home, a solitary bird in a flight to nowhere. I am all these things, and I am nothing at all. This, my darling, is my life without you. I long for you to show me how to live again.
This bottle, it was the right thing to do, write this note, seal it, travel to the Tillamook Spit and send these last wishes off to you. I could not be here when they scattered your ashes. My daughter got married. You would have LOVED the ceremony. The same day your ashes became one with this bay, she said her I-do’s to a wonderful man. I believe my son-in-law will care for her as well as you have cared for me. The cycle goes on. One of these days, I might be a grandmother. Today, though, I send these wishes to you, bottled up and hoping that by some delightful chance, your ashes and this bottle meet, and you smile that goofy smile with that "Mr. Ed" hat, and all is well in the “fishing place in the sky.”
My life began when l found you. And l thought it had ended when you passed. l thought that hanging on to your memory was keeping us both alive. But l was wrong. I am hoping to be brave enough to open my heart & love again, no matter how terrible my grief. lt will scare me and hurt. l know you'll bless me. And bless us all. lf l can't, then l'm still blessed because l've had the privilege of loving in my life. YOU gave me that.
Loving you always and always and always and always.
Your
Anniedear
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