Dear Jay,
For a school assignment recently you wrote about this blog, and how you'd found it randomly searching your name.
I forgot, actually, that you were always the intended audience for this blog. In a lot of ways I was writing it for me, so I would remember.
Right now I'm home, finishing my workday before I drive downtown to pickup Grandma Bear, who is taking the train from where she lives, to San Francisco to visit this weekend.
Where you are, of course, is in the middle of the United States, attending college, where you've been for two months already.
Your bedroom is exactly how you left it. In some ways it feels like you've just gone out for the day, and will be back later tonight. I'll peek into your room in the morning and you'll be asleep. But no, you're not here. Sometimes one or both of the cats sleeps on your bed, and sometimes when I need a change of scenery I lay down on your bed and gaze out the window at the big trees.
I don't really have a point to this. Does there need to be one? It's hard to believe that the time we had together every day, was so fleeting. Even those tremendously long pandemic days, where we navigated around each other, maintaining a fragile sanity. Even those days, in retrospect, flew.
So many memories arise when I'm writing in the morning in the dining room, and see photos on the automated picture frame. When a photo of you appears, often I'll send it off to you with a heading like "that time when we had fancy drinks in a bar in London" or "that time when we zip-lined in Puerto Vallarta", or recently I told someone about my approach to taking a big test - if you well, we get ice cream. If you don't do well, we get ice cream. Love is not at risk. Love is never at risk.
Let's lower the stakes about 50%, and see if that helps.
I've got to dash to pick up grandma.
I love you.
A million plus infinity.
Mom
