Lev,
I used to think of you always, but sometimes hours will go by without a thought, honestly sometimes half a day.
You are still dear in my heart for those times my mind flees.
I do better when I am constantly remembering because although my heart is heavy, it is constant and reliable.
It does not tear at me in surprise at is does when I forget for those light hearted hours.
As I plan a trip or do mundane stuff on the computer my mind is blissfully blank, and then thanks to google mail I am brought back to the heavy sinking feeling in my gut.
When I send a message and it gets bounced back as undeliverable I remember those in conceivable first days. I am greeted in my inbox by 148 messages that have bounced in the last three years. Most of them from soon after you left us. The message I see when I send a bounced message is the one I sent three years ago telling people about what happened. Or, I noticed that we sent another one out describing your memorial service, I can't imagine how, but it sits in my undeliverables, so I know we did it.
Today as I searched for a friends email I was thinking about their dreams of moving to Peru for a while, and then I see down in the list of emails we have exchanged was a letter he wrote to Lev, a special memory, sent shortly after Lev left us.
Thanks again to my F***ing mail search for keeping it real, for reminding me that nothing really matters, that I shouldn't be stressed about "getting things done" while Liana naps, that I should be amazed that I get anything done at all, that we are really still making it through the days, the long days of our lives that remain without our little Lev.
Moving beyond the trauma and shock of grief has its benefits, but then it always comes back, thanks to google mail, or something else.
I miss you Lev, and I also want to apologize for melting your knife sheath a couple days ago. I really liked using that green kitchen knife you were so excited to buy with us.
But, I somehow put a hot pot on it in the sink and melted the case yesterday. I had bought an identical one a year ago, dreading the day that it would be dull or lost or ruined. But, if I use the new one it won't be the same, and I'll know it.
As I use up the things we bought together it eats at me, yet I think it is somehow good. I am using the conditioner we bought on our trip together to Canada and it will be gone in a few weeks, too.
It's a constant tug of war: letting go and holding on, and then other things yank you back, like that damn google mail search.
