Dear Maya,
I sit in this moment watching the sun set over the Catskills, the expansive view from Spring Farm before me. Slide, Peekamoose, Doubletop. I remember walking those mountains in another life, when everything seemed so simple, when everything made more sense to me. There was a sense of fun and joy then, untainted by loss or sadness. I remember that feeling, but it is like a foreign language to me now. Now everything has a tint, a color, a pallor of loss that just is looming all the time. How quickly a tear comes to the eye of a friend, a stranger even, when we talk of you. How eager people are to help, to show their love and support to our family in need.
Earlier today I sat in the woods near those mountains I look at now, talking with my dear friend, loving the sound of the brook trickling by, the birds above, the wind in the trees. And with each breath of joy, there was a breath of loss. Maya, I am not trying to change anything; I know I cannot any way. I just want you to know how hard it is to feel joy again, how your loss has torn me so. I know you would not want this Maya. How long, Maya, how long? I just wonder, I just wonder.
I told my friend today “I see everything differently now.” An obvious understatement, I suppose. But as I explored it I did realize that I was in a dream of sorts. A dream of opposites. Seeking pleasure, avoiding pain. Desirous of reward, averse to scorn. As if there could only be one or the other. As if one meant anything without the other.
In a way you have taught me the greatest lesson, you have opened my eyes and mind and heart to what is real. But the price, Maya, I do not want to bear the price. Another friend told me today of your visits with her, before and after October 2, all in a story, one as real as the other. Is it Maya? Is one as real as the other? So many questions I cannot answer. So many questions that really have no answer. And perhaps that is the key. Accepting the unknown, the lack of answers, the nature of change.
As I watched the sun set I tried to do the math to figure out how many times the sun has set on Earth. How many times visible from this sport? How many times visible by a person. I gave up on it. It is mind boggling really, the enormity of it all, and yet those fifteen years, in those fifteen years, lies a universe for me.
I love you and miss you,
Dad
Xoxo