#2

Julie's Second Letter to Ava Gray:
 
Avie Gravy,
 
Oh, but I miss you. Those delicate long fingers that would flutter gently to rest on my arm when I sat down next to you. That mischievous quick flicker of a grin that would pierce the heaviness and cause me to giggle out loud. Since you’ve been gone, you are everywhere, my love. The grief of losing you has been the deepest ocean swell that has carried me, already treading water, far away from the shallows and across some sea. I find myself washed up on a deserted beach: alone, except that I am not. The echo’s and reflections of you fill every mirror in my heart. The deepest ache I feel at you being gone offers me better company than the closest of friends. I hold it close to me, and the deep love that is for you burns away the cold of the void that your shape left when you went away. I am all a-grief, and yet the utter joy I feel at the privilege and honor of knowing and loving you this hard makes me feel like the luckiest person in the world to feel it. And yes, love, I know you didn’t leave me. I know you are still here, perhaps even looking over my shoulder as I type this. I feel your little hands in my memory and the softness of your little kisses are so real in my grief that I sometimes touch my cheek in response. You were always so loved, Ava Gray. Even now, my love for you keeps growing as I realize that you were even more precious and strong and beautiful than even my mama-heart could realize there in the trench. We went through such suffering, my love. You bound yourself up with me and felt my pain as well as your own. What a wildly powerful and courageous heart you have, my love. That you could hold in you all that pain: all that love. I only bore the tiniest percentage of your suffering, and yet it made me stagger and almost fall. I was so worried near the end that I did not have what it took to walk you home. I wandered out into fear and exhaustion, love. I missed out on moments in which I could have offered my presence as a comfort to you. Even now I feel your forgiving through the gentleness of your fingers fluttering over my arm. Love. Little Ava Gray. You are a warrior. I am only now realizing how powerful your life’s mission was, and still is. Wherever you are, I send you all the love and support that my heart can muster. I still want to partner with you. Your work is so important, love. It will continue. I will carry the part that is for the physical part of this world. I will listen for whispers and echoes of you. I will trust that you are there. I love you so much. Selah.