i am thinking about you today, because today i am cleaning the apartment and going on a third date and i would call you to tell you about both of those things. i would call you as i cleaned, updating you on life, finding comfort in the shared background of you scrubbing the kitchen tile while i sprayed a bathroom counter. you outside, sending photos of your cucumber plants. me sending photos of my aloe that’s somehow still alive. we would pass at least an hour, sometimes two, like this, going about our shared chores. me wishing i could be there to ease the burden. hoping that somehow this phone call was enough of a balm for how hard your life had become. and forgetting it all as we mused about politics and work and the state of my love life. i would hear you sitting down at the kitchen counter to have lunch and i could imagine it all so perfectly. what you would make, how you would sit there, how you’d coo at the dogs as they came over to you. i can still imagine it all so well. many folks have lovingly checked in about tomorrow and it’s not tomorrow i worry about. it’s every day after that i want to pick up the phone to call you and can’t. this past week as we said mourner’s kaddish, the leader added a phrase to may their memory be a blessing that i hadn’t heard before. she added so many lovely words about mourning but it’s the “through you,” that i’m thinking of. how are you living through me? i could count the ways. and as i clean today, maybe i’ll call you up. and i’ll tell you each and every way. and i’ll remind you that i love you. and i miss you. oh, how i miss you.












