Dear Heather,

Dear Heather,

It’s that awful time of year again. The one that forces me to think of the last day of your life. I hate it. The articles, the photos, the videos. The towers falling and falling and falling in endless loops across the decades. The horror that was your last day, and the last day of thousands.

But here we are. It comes whether I want it to or not. So what will I make of it this year? Year 22. You have now been gone longer than I knew you. If I didn’t feel robbed before, I sure do now. (But I did feel robbed before. Just to be clear.) 

I think of all the years we missed. Weddings, babies, divorces, graduations, moves, boyfriends, hirings, firings, the passing of parents. All the events that make a life a life. I like to think you were there for all of it, with us. A spirit, floating in the ether, surrounding us in love and warmth.  

But I also feel cheated by that thought. That you had to be a ghost in our lives instead of a flesh and blood daughter, sister, friend, auntie. I think of all the cigarettes we didn’t sneak in the backyard, hiding from our kids. I think of all the Champagne we didn’t get to drink on New Year’s Eves. I think of all the meals we did not get to cook and eat together. I think of all the Cheddar Cheese Combos we didn’t snarf late night while slightly tipsy. Of all the clothes we couldn’t swap. Of all the trips we didn’t get to take, mowing our way through various countries like locusts with a taste for long, indolent lunches. Of all the birthday cakes you didn’t get to bake for my kids—or yours.

I wish you were here. Here for real, not just in my heart. I wish you could see my life now—so far from what I expected it to be, but so simple and happy. The kids are in their “becoming” phases. They both love to cook—and eat. Bella is such a hard worker, just like you were. And Lola loves to make friends with the “little lost birds” just like you did with that huge heart of yours. They are growing into themselves, just like we were at that age.

Remember how we were then? When we spent our summers together interning in DC, working in Boston? Remember that crazy lady who lived next door to us in Roslyn? Or that time I got food poisoning off of pesto because our little studio fridge wasn’t cold enough? Remember how much we loved the Au Pied de Cochon fries? And that English guy Martin who I worked with at MassPirg? Remember your boyfriends and my bad dates from when we were neighbors in New York? Old Tim and Young Tim? And that guy Pete who took me to Cucina di Pesce and ate the whole artichoke leaf because he’d never eaten an artichoke in his whole life?

And I wonder. Who would you have ended up with? Haole for sure. Handsome and very smart. A little nerdy maybe even? Maybe also a chef, or at least in the industry. It’s hard to meet anyone outside of the business when you’re in it as deep as you were.

I met someone. Finally. And there’s one thing I know for sure. Even though you were not a fan of some of my chosen men, you would love him. And I know that because when he and I were still just friends, we were having lunch one day and as we were eating, he started wondering what to eat for dinner. With his mouth full of lunch. Just like you always did.

I think he’s the one I’ve been hoping for all these years. Showing me how good life can be when you strip off all the pretension and stick with the beautiful simplicity that’s in profusion around us. He’s showing me the mountains and the streams and the alpine lakes. Camping, hiking, drinking from wild springs. Sneaking up on bright orange Kokanee salmon as they spawn. He notices everything: eagles and hawks in the sky, that delicious mushroom I’m about to step on, the liquid silhouettes of fish hiding in riffles in the rivers. He’s helping me remember what joy feels like. The kind you and I used to feel together so easily and often.

He helped me plant my first garden. Squashes and eggplants and nine different kinds of tomatoes, and a million lettuces and kales, and parsnips! I think about how fun it would’ve been to watch you go out my kitchen door, spend five minutes foraging, and come back in to create some kind of perfect summer garden feast for us. I know you would love the grapevine that grows all around my backyard.

Last night we got five chickens. Layers who will give us eggs every day. Fresh eggs! Every. Day. You would love that too wouldn’t you? And, oh how I would love to give you two of those beautiful fresh eggs and say to you, “Will you please bake my girls a cake?”

And you would say back, so easily because you would be there, standing right there in my backyard: “Yes. Of course.”

I love you and I miss you,

Boyd