Dear Peter

It is not lost on me that the number nine in numerology is associated with spiritual growth, wisdom, completion. Here we are nine weeks from your passing and frequently in a day I don’t feel one inch of growth, wisdom, or completion. An awareness will sneak in, sometimes it lingers, sometimes it is as etherial as you.

Do we hold awareness, do we own awareness, or is it more like a filament, a strand from a web teased on the currents of our own breaths…I want to pull the awareness to me, like a life rope. Except I am not drowning, not really. The overwhelming responsibilities, the empty space of your passing do make me feel like I am under water but deep inside I know each day I am moving through this to arrive at the dawn and do it again.

I recognize the self destruction, a way to numb the pain. I have moments of not caring if I live or die. They are fleeting, a whisper, certainly not a soundtrack. I acknowledge this because hiding it feels like another avoidance in my steamer trunk of avoidances. Online shopping is a good distraction: my shoe collection grows as I write this, buying more shoes is weirdly comforting. You always teased me about my shoe collection, called me the Imelda Marcos of footwear. Well, I have four new pairs now.

I have also re-discovered ice cream sandwiches (Alden’s) and made myself say No yesterday after eating 3 since I bought them three days ago. Self destruction in the form of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, but oh the creamy delicious comfort, almost as good as your hugs.

The tomato harvest is in full swing. Travis, our worker, loves the Fourth of July tomatoes, not so crazy about the Cherokee Purple. Which is great for me, since I love Cherokee Purple tomatoes. A few of the Black Krim have ripened, and I have staked claim to those. They are just as delicious as I remember from last year. I can’t even cut into a tomato without thinking of you making your famous tomato sandwiches, layers of tomato, mayo, and cheese. You could eat a couple of those a day.

We’ve gotten rain, sometimes gully-washers. The last one a day ago finally did the driveway in. All that work you put into the driveway, digging up river rock and stone down by the creek, filling buckets by hand, making smooth the ruts and craters. Your hard work has been washed down into the road. And you aren’t here to fix it.

Your cannabis plants are huge. One of them has got to be close to 11 feet tall. The years that you grew them, I loved being with them, smelling them, admiring them. Honestly, now they feel like a burden. I have lost the joy of growing these amazing plants. That’s on me. They are flowering, starting to form early-stage cones. You’ll be happy to know Travis talks to them and loves them almost as much as you did. I am determined to get the plants to harvest for you, to honor you, to finish what you started this spring with your little cannabis seed nursery.

People ask me, how I am doing? My stock answer is I Am Doing Okay.

I await the awareness that I trust will come.