Daniel took me for a ride in his Tesla Roadster up Page Mill Road and along Skyline Drive to Alice's Restaurant in Woodside. The smell of the sun on the grass blew across hills as we zoomed along in his elegant skate of a car. One of my favorite things to do is to watch people at Alice's Restaurant and to imagine what they look like during the week when they are not wearing motorcyles leathers and the de rigeur scraf on their heads.
As I sat with eating brunch with Alice and Daniel I noticed aloud that I am beginning to feel at home in their old apartment, but that when I awaken in the morning I feel so hollow. It is odd that when I get up and face the day I do so with some nameless sense of dread. I miss talking to Bonnie and touching her hair.
I somehow can not fully grasp that there is not even an email address where I can tell her about my life these days. Tears well up. There is no thing or activity that brings me fully back to life. I simply get up and bathe and face another day. When I accomplish something on my to do list I feel a sense of accomplishment, but my whole life seems flat. The background of my life is like a movie set. There is no place to go in. Nothing really matters.
Daniel and Alice ask if I do not have conversations with Bonnie. Of course I do, to some degree, and she has even returned to my dreams. But like my 4 year-old Abigail, I am not satisfied with these approximations of a real encounter with Bonnie.
Upon hearing that Bonnie is in heaven and conversely that Bonnie is in her heart etc. Abigail insists, in that no-fooling-around 4 year-old voice..."Yes, but WHERE IS SHE!?" I want to see her and I want to play with her NOW. It seems that Abigail and I will simply have to continue on our way and make a life without real encounters with Bonnie. This seems almost too sad to bear as I type it. I am crying.
The redeeming factor in all of this is the care of friends. Daniel and Alice and Glenn and Hugh and Dick and others keep a gentle life line out as I make my way through my own set of bardos. Without such company and love, I think life today would be impossible.
Bonnie and I arrived to a strange ethic in this weblog. Tell it like it is. Do not pull punches.
So there we have it. Life without one's life partner leaves a hole in your soul, and drains the juice out of life. Especially when your life partner was as full of vitality as our Bonnie.
Daniel
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