|
Thank you, Sir Isaac ...
for your tribute to my dearest Miki ... which I just noticed today, even though it is a week old already. I still don't get around here as often as I should ... but I'm working on that. Yes, Rim, I have of course seen Lily's lovely flash slideshow. Matter of fact, it is on the desktop of three computers which I regularly use, here and in other places. Let me tell all of you a little story about that slideshow. Just about a year ago (the first week of September, as I recall) I hosted a little gathering at our apartment (the Pleasuredome, as she so loved to call it) for some of Miki's (and my) closest and dearest friends. I hate to call it a "party" - it was more a combination of an Irish wake and of sitting shiva - an evening to remember, to mourn, and to celebrate the life of our departed friend. All of the people present were "of this life" ... providers (even one from Chicago!), hobbyists, a few who are "involved" in the business in rather different capacities. All in all, a group of somewhat jaded individuals. And when I played Lily's slideshow that evening, there was not a dry eye in the room. Lily, if you are reading, thank you again for that labor of love. I still view it from time to time, when I feel the need for a good cry ... I doubt that I will ever stop doing so until my time comes to join her. And thank you also to all who commented on my last blog, and on Sir Isaac's blog, and to all who knew, loved, and/or still remember her. I am still working on another gift from her to everyone here. Actually, I do have one which I think many will appreciate and enjoy - but I need to hear back from its creator first, as it has never been published to date. (And, no, that "creator" would not be she - we won't have to wait that long ;-) Stay tuned.
A year without her ....
Well, today it has been a year since she left me ... since she left all of us. It is so very hard to believe, to understand. The last month has been rather difficult for me. I will confess that I have not read a single blog here or on EB for the last month. Maybe today I will try to catch up on my reading. Perhaps that will help me to get out of this funk, depression, malaise, call it what you will. It all started with my birthday late last month. Five years ago, my birthday brought me, in some strange way, to the discovery of this amazing world which we lovingly refer to as "the hobby." Without that discovery, I surely would never have met her. For my birthday three years ago, she flew back from a trip to LA two days earlier than planned, just to be with me on that day. That was in those days when we were still trying to deny our feelings for each other to each other, when we tried to pretend that our relationship was just that of provider and client. What a silly charade that was! The fact that she was there, with me on that day should have told me that there was a whole lot more to it than that. This year, I spent my birthday with friends ... but not with her. But for lunch, four of us dined at the very same place where she took me three years ago! Then, a week later, the unveiling of her headstone. The whole family was there, of course. It was so very sad and painful. But I know that she would have appreciated the second Psalm at the service ... from the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 ... To everything there is a season ....... Actually, I know that she did appreciate it. Then, a week ago today, it was a year since she went into the hospital ... and a year ago today that she passed away. So the last week has been the anniversary, so to speak, of the most horrible week of my entire life! I hate to dwell on it, I know I shouldn't ... doing so makes me totally miserable, but I just cannot stop myself. I know that I should focus on the love and the happiness that we shared, the joy she brought to my life for the time we had together, short though that time was. Well, if I make it through today, maybe I can do that tomorrow. I wish that I had another gift from her to share with those faithful readers who remember and miss her. I've already given you her poetry and her comedy in my blogs last year. Tomorrow, when I am in the city, perhaps I will be able to find something on her computer to share ... I have nothing more on my laptop here on the wrong side of the river. I love you, Miki. You know that I always will. Oh, babe, I miss you so .... 
Happy Birthday, my Love
I cannot believe that it has been nearly nine months since I saw your lovely face, gazed into those beautiful green eyes of yours, held you close. I hope you know how much I love you ... and always will. I remember your birthday, three years ago today. Just a few months after we first met. When you decided to throw yourself that little birthday party and inivite so many friends of yours from our little world ... the beginning, really, of that wonderful "community" that exists within the hobby here in New York. I remember your birthday, two years ago today. Just a few months after we got the apartment ... our little love nest. A much smaller party, just a few of our close friends. And it was good. I remember your birthday, one year ago today. That final party at the apartment. I am so sad that you were not really able to enjoy yourself that evening ... because of how you felt and because of ... well, things. But it was so wonderful to hold you tight the next morning. This evening, on your birthday, a few of your close friends will be getting together ... I think you know that. I hope you will be with us, in some way. I am sure that you will. Our years together ... brief though they were ... were the happiest years of my life. Your being a part of my life has changed me in ways that I still do not and cannot understand. So many of the things that I do, I do because I think you want me to, such as helping our "mutual friend" with her present problem. I spoke with your mom yesterday. She told me that the 12th was Mothers Day, fifty-one years ago when your arrival made her a mother for the first time. She misses you so ... as do so many people who you touched with your life. I love you, babe. I miss you. I am so lost without you. Although I am unsure of my beliefs about such things, I hope, and pray, that we will someday meet again, somewhere, someplace. But you know I will never forget you ... not for a single moment. 
Yes, she is still talking to me
A strange day yesterday. (Someone here already knows the story ... but I feel I must share this one ... it is just too bizarre.) Yesterday I spent the afternoon and early evening with someone ... someone who is known to many here, someone who I have known for many years, someone who I introduced Miki to ... and they became friends. But a strange, almost surreal, experience in actually getting together with her yesterday. She was staying in a hotel on the west side of Manhattan. She had emailed me the name and address of the hotel. By pure chance, on that particular street, there are two hotels with very "similar" but rather unusual names. She wrote one, I mentally registered the other. She told me the room number. At the appointed time, I knocked on her door ... or so I thought ... but no answer! I called her ... said I, open the door, I am outside ... said she, I just did, no one is there! It took me a few minutes, but I eventually figured out the problem ... and I walked the two blocks to the correct hotel ... and things proceeded from there ... many things ... which I cannot and will not go into. Only once before in my four-and-a-half years as Hyabby, Hyabby who has visited hundreds of hotel rooms on the fair Isle of Manhattan, has such a thing occurred ... almost he exact same thing. It was about three years ago. I was on my way to visit a lady who I knew ... who I had met once before that day. She told me that she was staying at "the Marriott on 40th Street." There is a Marriott on West 40th Street, just west of 6th Avenue, which I knew, which I had been to before. And so it was there that I went. I knocked on the door ... no answer! A phone call and ... turns out she was in the Marriott on East 40th Street ... two blocks away. A hotel I had also been to before. But when I had been there before, it was a Comfort Inn. At that particular point in time, Marriott had just taken over and re-branded the property a few weeks earlier. I had no idea, then, that there even was a Marriott on East 40th Street! So ... a two block walk, and all was well. And now for the "Miki moment" ....... Yesterday, as I was waiting for the appointed time, I was talking on the phone with someone ... someone who I had not spoken with in a few years ... someone who had been a very close friend of Miki's a while back, even before Miki and I met, although they had somewhat drifted apart ... someone who will be in New York next week ... someone who is also a friend of the "lady of yesterday." Just talking about life, and about Miki, and about getting together next week to raise a glass and remember her. Just a phone call to kill some time. And then came the confusion ... and then the resolution ... of yesterday. And who was the someone I had been speaking with just a few minutes earlier? Well, it was the "lady of the Marriotts" ... but of course! And then moments later, I re-lived that strange scenario! Such is my life these days. She is pulling my strings. And I hope she never stops.
| 
