The Ubiquitous Miss

She's everywhere. No matter where I turn I think I see her, but of course she's not there. I catch a glimpse of her on a crowded street, and then she disappears into the crowd. I wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling that she's standing at my front door, maybe my dogs are even barking, but when I throw open my inner door and look down, nobody is standing at the foot of the stairs. I pick up the phone to call her (almost every day still) as if we just haven't been keeping up, and I could call and exchange the scoop on our lives. I miss Jessica!

My eyes still well with tears from the very act of typing those words, and that makes me feel sort of silly. Lately I've been thinking about the verbs of it all.:

To Remember- To excavate a certain depth or sector of the miracle that is one's mind and discover something that was left there. Sometimes the very act of remembering comes as a burden, but so much of what we remember has been buried up there to bring us joy. Memories are an opportunity to do it over again and again. The beauty of memories, is that they will be washed over with the waters of time until every roughness, and jagged edge are gone; until each time we take them out to hold them they fit polished and solid in the palms of our hands, like a worry stone of the soul. It's good to remember.

I remember the last time I saw Jessica. She had been in the area and suggested that she pick me up and drive me to work so that we could talk and catch up. She ran into all sorts of traffic, and the whole thing resulted in me being very late and very uptight. We bounced around in her Jeep, laughing and talking as she maneuvered maniacally through the imposing traffic. Most of my energy was focused on panicking about my tardiness. I wish I could remember every word we shared, but I don't, because I didn't know they were the last.

I remember getting her a night tending bar at a local gay club. A friend had called me and asked if I knew anyone good. Of course I said she would be perfect. I agreed to go out that night and hang out while she worked, we sat and talked in between her customers, and had a rouccous time. I remember watching her slide around a milk crate all night because she was too short to reach the liquor shelf. I remember the glitter around her eyes that night. I remember feeling good to have her nearby.

To Miss- To miss is to run your hands around the surface of your heart and discover an empty place, where something used to be. Sometimes the void is shaped like a place or time that once meant something to you, but most often they take the shape of people. Missing is pulling your heart out and observing the empty spaces, it starts with one specific thing or person, then it grows. To miss is to be bombarded with every single thing that has ever been lost. Once you begin to name the void, you discover that it is an ever changing, eternally healing wound left by that which. . . left.

I feel as though the miss becomes omnipresent. It's not simply that I miss Jessica, but I miss every tendril of time, and each loving soul that has passed. I ache with this. . .ubiquitous miss.