It has gotten cold. The winds have picked up and the sun is rarely seen. Again a short summer has come to an end with many around wondering why we missed it. The sky is grey like a concrete block, weighing heavily. There is a crispness in the air though that heralds the season to come. The fun and festivities that will cheer us through the bleak months, that will bring us together with our loved ones once more. An excitement is building. The children are buying their Halloween masks as the trick or treat begins. The evening skies have begun to sparkle with rockets and explosions as if the people do not want the noise and lights of November 5th to last just one night.
I have no reason to be sitting typing at these keys about such things. A phone call with no answer has left me feeling empty. A conversation, however brief, may have been enough to fill the void. We may have searched our minds for things to say to each other, not wanting to say the things that truly weigh us down and so, grappling with trivialities, we miss our moment but are comforted by the voice of another.
It is getting darker now. I can feel the sun’s absence getting closer and with its vanishing, the vanishing of another weekend. The start of another week, what joy!
We do not speak often, and some would say not often enough but I can feel your thoughts from miles away. I hope you are both happy. That you find comfort in each others company and that you still make each other smile.
A message that started out to be just a sharing of my thoughts has extended into so much more. This somehow doesn’t seem the right medium through which to send these thoughts. But I am not a character from a Bronte book; I don’t spend my afternoons with pen and ink. I live in this digital world that has swept us up and would find it hard to turn back. Do you remember a time when we wrote to people with pen and ink? The thank you letters, the messages to loved ones far away. What happened to that time? We do not share the thoughts now; we do not share our comings and goings. I’m missing your life as you grow, just as you are missing mine.
Missing? Am I missing something? I’m missing you. That is what I’m missing.
But I can think of you both and my heart is lifted. So everything is alright with the world. There’s a smile on my face because I have you as family and as friends.
Don’t let me lose that, please.
je, 2004