A Love Letter from Five Thousand Miles Away

Me and Him
Corea, Maine 2021 

    Last night my husband, who is in Brazil, texted me.    "Can you see the moon?"  

    This was out of the blue. Our previous texts over the past three days had been about a crazy tenant, our daughter-in-law who has COVID and a science fiction story I am writing.  

    I texted back.  "No."  

    I thought he was referring to a picture he had sent me earlier of the sunset over São Paulo.  He was in a hotel overlooking the city as the sunset lit up the sky in shades of orange.  He told me twenty kites were flying.  Did I see them? 

    My husband and I have been a couple for thirty years.  That's somewhere around 11,000 days.  We've never been apart for more than a week.  But we are now.  

    "But that's quite a picture."  I scoured the photo of the orange sun setting over one of the biggest cities I have been to.  I remembered motorcycles weaving dangerously in and out of racing traffic like we were in video game and colorful graffiti on the concrete barriers.  I remembered that very hotel he took the picture from.  

 I enlarged the picture and all I could see was the sun setting behind the city about to go to sleep.    "But there's no moon and no kites." 

   " I just thought we could be looking at the moon together.  It would make me feel closer."  He texted.

    I felt the warmth of his love five thousand miles away from there to here.  Did he just text that? I laughed to myself.  

    "Oh right now? lol". I texted when I understood he wasn't referring to the photo. "Will look when it comes up."  The sun was still shining on this side of the earth.  

    My husband is a man of few words.  And he hates texting.   Or talking on the phone.  

    At 9:29pm I looked out the bay window of our home in Maine as the waxing crescent moon was peeking at me through the treetops and shining high in the sky.  

    I texted.  "I can see the moon." And then, "Thinking about you."  I sent along a moon and heart emoji.  

    I looked over at his easy chair and felt the absence of the man who probably saved me life.  

    I miss him so much my heart hurts.  First day he was gone I had a headache and then a stomach ache.   And yet I want him to have fun so I don't let on.  He's there with his son and granddaughter.  Brazil is home to my daughter-in-law.  

    A few moments later I heard my iPhone ding in a high-pitched tone dedicated to my husband's text messages.  "I can too."  He texted back.  "Love you."  

    And then he added that yellow emoji with hearts for eyes which is so out of character for my usually untexting husband.  

    I laughed.  And maybe cried.  

    I woke up this morning to a text he sent at 11:08pm when I was in bed and struggling to sleep.  "Good night."  He added in that yellow-faced emoji who's kissing with a heart on his lips.  

    Who is this man I laugh to myself.  

    In many ways I hate that he is gone.  I feel abandoned.  I feel lonely.  But it is also so quiet I can hear the wind rustling the leaves as I sit on my porch writing and wondering about the day.  

    He's gone today but will be home in a few tomorrows.  

    My stomach is fine now and my head no longer reminds me he is gone. 

    I think about what it would be like, life without him.