My beloved, you died...

You died...

...in the year 2013, which you said was going to be your lucky year.

...in your Death card year (8+8+2013 = 2029 = 13) , and me in a Devil card year (11+25+2013 =

2049 = 15)

… in May (the 5th calendar month) on the 14th (reduces to 5) on the 5th day of the lunar month of Thargelion. You may have even died at 5am.

...the spring that the century (agave) plants bloomed. That spring, we had marveled at their height and tasted their nectar (although it was not delicious).

...in the spring after a very strange Anthesteria.  I was horribly sick, yet I was determined to see it through, to keep drinking and doing ritual and not hold back.  It was hard, I had a fever for all 3 of those days, and you were worried that I was pushing myself too hard.  Even then, I would have said that this particular Anthesteria was more about the dead than others we celebrated, but I wouldn't have been able to explain why.

...10 days after we went to Sedona on a day trip. We walked a trail we had never walked before, one that I had visited in my childhood. We saw all the beautiful ivy on the ruins of old buildings, it was picturesque and magical, and we wished he had a camera to take pictures of each other but we both left our phones in the car. On the trail, we saw orange and blue caterpillars coming out of hundreds of webs all along the trees and bushes, and we were so fascinated by them, that we got to witness their emergence. We did tarot readings next to the creek and burned incense. We quietly read for ourselves, me with the Voyager deck and you with the Rider Waite.  I remember looking at your cards, mentioning we’d both gotten a certain card, and yet for some reason we didn’t discuss our readings like we usually would... I don’t know why, but now I wish we had, even though at the time I think we were just quietly peaceful.  We had gone to a new age store, where you bought some stones and we bought a new blanket for the bed, then tried to find a place that was still open to eat.  It ended up being mediocre chinese food, but we got to try some lychee liquor and we were laughing and joking.  On the way home, we harvested some prickly poppies near a rest stop.  I said we should leave an offering and you pulled a tiny amethyst out of your pocket, and I left that on the ground. We listened to your new ipod all that day - you had put electronic music you had composed years ago on there and I was impressed by your talent all over again when it came up on random.

...after 2 or 3 weeks of mysterious occurrences on the patio - the bicycle light kept turning on to one of its last settings. A couple of times you thought I was opening the slide zipper on the bag of soil, but I hadn’t of course. And then the bag of prickly poppy we had harvested was knocked over, and all of them gathered into a neat little pile..  We thought it might be a nature spirit taking up residence on our patio. Now I wonder if it was someone waiting for you. (I saw the light the first time, but otherwise it was almost always when it was just you at home.) It stopped when you died.

...just a few days after an intense conversation we had in bed before we fell asleep.  I asked you something about your history, and suddenly you were telling me the whole “story” of your past relationships in order and in detail. I remember wondering why you felt the need to tell me all of it right then, but I just listened. You told me I had saved your life because I never gave up on you.  I said, “How could I? It took me my whole life to find you, and I wasn’t about to let you go.”  You insisted that I could have but didn’t.

...just a few days after I was feeling intense, almost panicked, for no particular reason while driving to work.  I started to text you, just to reach out and let you know how I was feeling and how inexplicable it was.  But then I erased my text and didn’t mention it.  I don’t know why I erased it.

...2 days before we were going to go camping, just the two of us, on the Rim.  I had told you earlier that week that I wanted you to make love to me in the woods, and you smiled and said we would.  We were going to take the last of our mushrooms.

...the morning after sending me naked pictures of yourself (which you never did before, and are the only nude pictures I have of you), many posed cleverly with mirrors. The strangest thing is, even though your death was certainly unintentional, you had organized the pictures just a couple hours before you died, in a folder titled “Dionysis Takes Me”. I did not find this until 4 months later, but it stunned me. Was it your state of intoxication that inspired such a title??  And yet He took you in more ways than one...

...while listening to your ipod with the songs on shuffle. The song playing when I found you was Go to Sleep (Little Man Being Erased) by Radiohead.  The song after that would have been Keep Sleeping by the Rentals.