Dearest Rachel –
You’ve heard tell from me on one day or another about how I have so little to write to you, and that’s still quite true; in the nine hundred days since your departure, some of them have simply run together, and offered nothing in particular to set them apart in terms of relating their events. Life is full of days like that, and it – along with the fact that we were in the moment then, too busy experiencing it to consider the need – is why I don’t have all that many memories of an ordinary day here at home, just the three of us. I’m sure if I were to have one back, to witness in an “Our Town” sort of way, it would break my heart to go through it, just as it did Emily in that final act.
Some days, too, I have thoughts and inspiration that has nothing to do with the present day, which is perfectly fine – indeed, I’d meant this whole series of letters to be more dedicated to that sort of thing; a tribute to you and who you were to me, rather than just filling you in on my days and how I’ve been spending them in your absence. But those days are few and far between, and growing fewer as I get farther and father away from you, in terms of time. It’s the thing that I always feared happening that’s slowly coming upon me, as the many days without you slowly overwhelm the ones spent with you – not merely from sheer numbers, but from their proximity as well. The crowd surrounding me, for better or worse, demands my attention in a way that a departing cohort does not.
Today is a day lacking in that sort of inspiration, and not exactly filled with unusual and interesting moments in real time either. It’s to be expected, I suppose – if every day was unusual, would any day truly be considered so? One has to make of the seemingly ‘duller’ days what one can. And, in fact, there are a few little things in the morning that are certainly worthy of comment. It’s just that they are all little things; were I to tell you about them, they would take up but a paragraph, if that. They are the quintessence of ‘nothing to write home about’; and yet, as a whole, they might be worth relating, after all.
If nothing else, they are basically what’s going on…
***
After a couple of months’ hiatus, I’ve gone back to working on creating more pictures of you; actually, I was hoping to update the text files detailing your real photographs in hopes that an updated LoRA file would teach the program to stop giving you hair that sticks out (since the computer seems to have difficulty determining where your hair ends and your ribbons and bows begin). I haven’t been able to process this new LoRA (let alone test it), but I’ve found a few new checkpoint files that I’ve been slowly working my way through. And with the wildcard prompt structure, I can give the computer some vague instructions, leave it running while I’m out of the house, and have hundreds of different pictures of you when I get back, ranging from the surreal to the suggestive to the superb…
I may have gotten a little carried away, to be honest.
But I have found myself wondering what you might have thought of some of these. I’m sure the technology would have impressed – and in fact, might have even intrigued – you. But would you appreciate what I’ve been able to do to your image? Erin has referred multiple times to how she finds the whole process to be ‘creepy,’ and the more of these I generate, the more I understand where she’s coming from, since I can put you in anything (or nothing at all; let’s be honest) and anywhere. Would you object to what I was doing with your likeness, or would you be enthusiastic, only making the odd suggestion here and there – or perhaps taking a crack at the technology yourself, possibly even turning the tables on me, and creating scenarios of what and where you would want to see me? It would be only fair, I suppose.
And that was just a thought I was having as I started the day. Imagine what I did thus far.
***
Actually, never mind. Most of what I do is the boring part that I’ll only be able to write a sentence or two about – at least for now. For example, this morning’s weigh-in shows me still managing to keep myself under a certain psychological barrier I’ve been trying to stay across, but as it hasn’t been a week yet (and I’ve a whole weekend of not exercising to go), I’m not about to declare “Mission Accomplished” just yet. If I can, and do, you can expect a full letter about that some time in the near future, but now is not that time.
Breakfast was a bit of an adventure. After fixing kebabs for myself and the boys the other day, I really should have run the cleaning cycle in the oven again (and asked Kris to clear out the detritus left behind by that process). As it was, baking a toasted ham-and-egg sandwich resulted in a rather ominous amount of smoke before I thought to turn on the vent. Fortunately, compared to the fan Daniel leaves on in the family room, the vent fan is hardly loud enough to be heard from there, so he slept though it all.
He even slept through Logan coming downstairs and assembling whatever it is he needs to head out to his job. I reminded him about June’s rent, knowing that he was paid every other Friday, and might be able to do something about it. Lucky call; this is apparently that Friday, so hopefully, he’ll be paid up for the next couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, I finished off a bottle of the catawba grape juice that has been languishing in the cooler ‘Bryan Hamilton’ left us; we’d run out of breakfast juice the other day, and while Daniel and I had made a trip to the supermarket last night to use up a few coupons, this had been opened on Wednesday, and needed finishing. It saddens me to think that I’ll never restock this supply again (unless the group of us visits South Bass while we’re there to set you adrift in 2025 – and even then, it will be the last time), but it was that mentality that left so much going stale, or even rotting, in our kitchen in the past. Have to use – and hopefully enjoy – it while we can, after all.
Today’s reading took me to Ruth, and her pledge to Naomi – your people my people, your God my God. Those were among our vows (and the nod to each other’s section of the congregation got a laugh at the time) so many years ago. Could I ever say that to someone else and mean it? Come to that, I haven’t had much part in your people since your departure – have I been faithful to that pledge? Or am I released from it, as you are from life? Like with my weight situation, this might be another separate essay, if I ever think hard enough about it.
***
Likewise, once I finished my Bible reading (and my news feed), I probably could do a whole letter on the other thing I was reading over breakfast; famous last words. I’ll be honest, I don’t recall what, if anything, you said as I went to watch over and assemble everything for once you and Daniel returned from your last run down the hill. Probably something about “just one more time,” which, honestly, could sum you up pretty well, even if I were to go into more detail.
It does make me wonder if I could say something meaningful when my end comes. Certainly, someone will read something I’ve written after I’m gone (I should hope). Will they find it significant at all? I’ve no idea, and it doesn’t help that most of us have any idea which words we say will be our last. For all I know, the card I’m going to send out to my cousin’s daughter (who, I guess, still counts as ‘my cousin’) won’t arrive until after I’m gone; life’s like that sometimes. But probably not.
Still, in either case, keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 