This summer...

I almost dialed her phone number the other day. I don't know why. Obviously her answering machine isn't there anymore, but I just wanted to pretend to hear her voice. It has been nearly 6 months since Amy passed, and for six months, I haven't called her, gotten an email from her, met her for lunch, had her babysit, or just gone down there to hang out. And I simply can't believe what a change it is for me, for our family. I mean, it isn't like I saw her so often that it is a huge shift in my daily life, but yet her presence is just missing. Gone. It is so hard to describe that shift.

I've had some tough moments where I just want to cry and scream at the universe--moments where I have sat down at the keyboard with tears in my eyes and written out a long and very blabbery email to another friend from college. There are moments, I tell her, when I just can't believe how utterly alone I feel without Amy. I mean, I am surrounded by family and good friends, but without being able to call her, without being able to just hear her voice, the voice that has been there without fail for nearly 20 years...well, it is a challenge. And this other friend always writes back full of empathy and with all the caring of someone who knew from the beginning that my relationship with Amy was special...and yet, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, she or anyone else can do.

So while I haven't been much of a blogger lately, because we have been buying a house, dealing with the first trimester-yuckies, having summer fun and basically being really busy, this is what has been on my mind. How much I can still hear her voice in my head, how much I would give to go sit in her apartment again, how much I want to do another day in Boston with her, how much I just want to call her up and hear her say, "Hey!" the way she always did. Summer of 2011...my first summer without Amy. I miss her.