I am in San Francisco, at a math conference, and suddenly, your face appears in my subconscious thoughts.  I try to erase your image, but still you persist.  Have you ever been to San Francisco?  My intuition tells me no.  I usually can feel your presence, and I hate that I have a constant sense of awareness about that.  No matter what building I walk into, my internal radar alerts me to your physical history.  It usually starts with, “Have we ever been here together?” and ends with “Has he ever been here without me?”  It’s not just buildings that send me down this line of thinking.  Everytime I turn down a street, see a different view, or even watch a show on TV…the experience ends up going through this odd filter.  I wonder when this will end?

I don’t know if I have written about one of my facebook friends who lost her husband to a heart attack in December.  She is living the aftermath of grief and loneliness online.  Daily, I read about how she misses her husband and can’t come to terms with the unexpectedness of his death.  Sometimes I identify greatly with her grief and her words bring me to tears as I experience the wisdom of her realizations.  And then there are other times when I am actually jealous because her grief is real in a way mine never will be and never can be.  

Oh, and I dreamt about you again.  Remember when you told me that when someone dreams about a person who has died, it’s actually that person’s way of coming back and communicating with you?  I remember that I used to treasure those dreams…dreams of my father holding me in the rocking chair and pulling me close to his chest, dreams of my Grandma and her house in Stephenson, or my Grandpa watching me drive that old red pedal car.  

All that ended with you.  Now I hate dreaming about dead people.  I don’t have the nice dreams of my deceased family members anymore.  The only dead person I dream about is you and those dreams leave me waking up with sweat, fear, and terror.  I don’t want you to communicate with me.  I really just want you to go away so I can heal…so I can be free.