Letters to Michael: On the Road Again: April 28, 2012

Dearest Michael, I just want you to know that you don’t travel much lighter or pass through the TSA screening any easier than you did when you were alive.  Who knew Ashes could be so heavy.  You used to complain that you hated airport screenings.  You had to be patted down every time because of your pacemaker, metal knee, and hip.  In your new form, there are no pat downs, no pacemaker, or metal.   Instead of going around the x-ray devices, I just put you on the belt, safe inside my carry-on, and you ride through just like all my other precious cargo.  Taking you from Guatemala to Los Angeles was relatively easy.  They x-rayed you twice just to make sure there were no explosives, and then let us pass.  No need to ruffle the feathers of a new widow I guessed.  Even passing you through screening in Los Angeles, on the way to Mexico City, wasn’t too difficult except for the long lines.  But getting you through from Mexico City to Huatulco, well that took a lot of time and hassle. 

By now I have cut the weight of you down somewhat by parceling you out to various places.  As you might imagine, your sisters wanted some of your ashes to put with your mother.  I left some behind to put in the garden on Ninth Street when “we” move back into the house in a year or two.  So now I am carrying about half of you in a small mailing box and you are still quite heavy!  This new box may have thrown the Mexican TSA screeners off a bit.  Although your paper work was in order, and the box, per regulation, was tightly sealed, they seemed a lot more concerned about letting you pass than the rest of the screeners we’ve encountered.  It took about thirty minutes of waiting and re-screening, and waiting some more for them to let us pass.  You would think by now with all the waiting I did with you, at TSA screenings, while you were alive, that this would be easy. 

But it wasn’t.  It took one guy, on a walkie-talkie, checking through the whole chain of command at least a half an hour for someone to give him the okay to let us pass and go to the gate.  As stoic as I have been so far, I didn’t handle this delay well.  I wanted to tell them the story about how I promised to bring you to the places we planned to go together.  I wanted them to know how much you liked Mexico hoping that might help explain why I needed to bring you along.  But my Spanish is just horrible.   All I could get out, before I started to cry, was to point to your box and say, “Mi Esposo.”   Just the thought of having to beg for us to be on our way and I dissolved into a sopping wet puddle. 

When they finally let us pass Page and I were the last passengers to board the flight to Huatulco.  It is warm and beautiful here at Lori and Mark’s home.  I know you would have loved this place.  The home is like something out of Architectural Digest with a stunning view of the ocean and an infinity pool that appears to drop right into the sea.  Often the roar of the waves can get so loud it is hard to sleep at night.  As planned, my children and their partners, Page and Chandy, and Peter and Kristen, are here to share this experience with me.  I know that I couldn’t do this without them.   Yet, there isn’t a moment that I don’t think of you and wish you were here.  I can only imagine the fun you would have speaking Spanish with Chandy and Page, and catching up with Pete and Kristen regarding their latest business successes.  Watching both couples together, so much in love, reminds me that I am now the single one in the group again and going off to bed without you by my side.  I try hard to put on a happy face with them around.  I figure why ruin their vacation or my precious time with them.  With your persistent absence I realize the importance of being present each minute of every day.  I don’t want to have any regrets when they all leave and wish that we had done more together or wish that I had been more present and a better listener.

Typical of our other travels, we have struck up a nice new friendship with another couple who live in Huatulco nearly full time.  Lori referred them our way and it is nice to have local recommendations on things to do for fun.  One day they stuffed all of us into their seven passenger van and we took off along the very windy, hilly mountain roads to a coffee festival.  The little town was just one long street with a tiny central square and a very gaudy aqua marine blue church resting, of course, on the highest point in town.  There were only a few local people from surrounding villages enjoying the day.  And we seemed to be the only gringos in town.  It was just like any other local town fair with small booths set up around the square and vendors selling various coffee products that they had brought from their farms.  Each vendor claimed to have the best coffee in all of Mexico.   Not being a coffee drinker you would have lost interest in what the vendors were selling.   But there were plenty of beautiful kids, with dark hair and big brown eyes running around to have kept you amused.  And the food, you would have loved the wonderful food!  Our new friends were familiar with the local food in this town and took us to a restaurant that made the best tortillas and a baked lamb dish that I had ever had.  The meat just melted in our mouths.  Page, ever ravenous these days with a six month pregnancy, demands food every two hours.  Before we were even served our meal, she devoured most of a delicious barbequed chicken.  I could picture you there with us, laughing at Page, stealing tastes of her chicken, and speaking Spanish to the proprietor.  The kids and I made a toast to you and our new found friends.

Just like three years ago when we visited Baja for a month, I have invented some decent Mexican meals.  Only in Mexico do I seem to relocate my ability to produce some local dishes.  The first thing I put on the stove was a pot of homemade beans to cook for a whole day.  They turned out better than ever and complimented the other dishes.  There was an ample amount of beans left over to sustain us through several meals.  Also, with some leftover chicken, I made your favorite chicken tortilla soup.  Wishing you were here, I indulged my sweet tooth by concocting a mango-banana upside down cake. 

I am relatively happy as long as my mind is occupied and the kids are around.  When I am alone I realize how bonded we were as a couple, how much I depended upon you for companionship and how difficult it is to travel without you.  I am reminded daily that I am not going to bump into you in the kitchen, hear you sing in the shower, kid around with us in the pool.  I will never again hear you tell me how much you love what I’m cooking.  I realize that even though I have a big group to cook for right now, I am actually cooking this food for you.   Unfortunately, when we sit down to eat you are not here to enjoy it. 

It is amazing to me how much of a matched set we had become. Like a pair of geese, bonded for life, we flew off to various places and enjoyed the journey together.  While you never really liked to dance that much, for fear of looking stupid on the dance floor, you always honored my request to dance.  We danced well together, both on the dance floor, and throughout our marriage.  We moved in near perfect harmony most of the time and rarely stepped on one another’s toes.  I will miss the comfort of our movement through the days and nights to come.  I realize just how big a void your absence has made in my life.