Dear Josephine

Dear Josephine,

I had that dream again. The one where my superpower is that I am my own black light. (No, not that kind!!! OMG I can’t believe you went there?? ;)) No, I’m talking about a light that shows me wounds, scars, and unseen burdens carried by others. The light helped me to hear better too. It helped me to hear the crying, the pain, and the loss spoken by the hearts of the hurting. All the things they don’t want to hear or face or remember. The things that seemed to know them all too well. The light allowed me to see and hear the hurt and then I knew how to help. Because awake or asleep, more than anything, I want to help.

And yes, I know, you’d be saying that you're fine and doing fine and will be fine. I know what you always said. But fine was not your superpower but your kryptonite. I do so wish you would have stopped wrapping yourself up in it.

I know, I got off track. I do that, well, always. Okay, I know you're curious about the dream. You’re always curious. Well, I guess you never tell me to not tell you so I call that curious. Might just be boredom. So, I’ll tell you that I found you in the usual place. On the uptown bus, head down, as hair-over face girl. In every way the opposite of what you would show the world. Every now and then, in the dream, your chin lifts. Your eyes the empty eyes of crying. Until the chin and mouth pinch. The eyes heavy once again. In the dream, I slide in next to you and intertwine our fingers. And, your heart and spirit tilt ever so slightly towards me. Draining hurt and pain towards the low side of the teeter-totter that together we become.

Look I know this is a dream but it feels so real to me. Because from the moment I find you until I wake up, we watch those who are alone shifting back and forth. We know they think they're taking weight off of their shoulders but they are merely switching it from one side to the other. The weight they carry has been picked up but they do not know how to let back down. And there is nobody to share it with. The kind of weight that gravity is too well acquainted with. The kind of heavy that does not show up on a scale though it is making them sink. The kind of weight that alone a person cannot find a balance in carrying.

Oh, before I forget it, the dog was at the vet last week but he’s fine now. I know how you love that little ball of fur. So I figured I’d give you an update. He still goes to your bed and sleeps though he whines less now. Yes, he misses you. We all do. It began the moment you went away. But enough about Jake.

I wanted to tell you how much more clearly I see things now. How much the dream has crossed over to the everyday. How all the things of you, like the writing and pictures tell everyone the story of you. Oh how much I want others’ eyes to see - when they look at these pieces of you - that all of us are just trying to get along in a world that largely ignores the people that live in it. You know, I remember you telling me one time how much you wish all of humanity's vision would soften. The way it used to when those pictures inside of pictures were popular. So we could see the picture within people. See what darkens their hearts and eclipses their hope. I want you to know that my eyes are softer now.

I know I tried to see you that way. And now more than ever I agree with you that if we could see this way, we would want to, have to, be a light for those people. All people.

On the bus, in my dream, we both share the gift of seeing into the heart and minds of others. We see it etched on skin in strange shapes, words, and messages. We see it as shades of light emanating from people sitting or walking by as the bus moves ahead. We can see the hurting. The ones who are close to the edge. The emotionally exhausted. The ones losing their sense of identity. Those who appear whole but on the inside, are a collapsing star falling into the emptiness within.

I know you’ve told me this more times than I care to count, but it finally sunk in. Now I believe that if we could reach others in this way it would unwind the hurt tying them up.

In my dream, we ride together throughout the night. We always, almost, make it to the end of the line. But then I am off the bus watching it carry you away. And in that moment, when you are once again gone from me, I love you so much that it almost cripples me. And while our journeys fall along different paths I have always wanted to tell you that I know we all know pain. On a deeply personal and absolute level. Because pain is a lot like a mirror ball. It reflects itself in different patterns on the skin, the heart, and the mind. No single day is the same and its ebb and flow have no discernible pattern. No rhythm to learn. No pattern to trace. Pain is a weight whose constancy does not always match its intensity. Pain, like cancer, does not pick or choose to whom it attaches. Pain does not always have a source. It is like a ghost, haunting us. And that can be the most frustrating part - because for whatever reason, you felt that your story was to carry someone else’s pain. And I just wish you would have let me carry it for you so you did not have to.

I know you're still dead and that these letters will never be read by you but wouldn’t it be nice…

Sincerely,

Dad