ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 294: Missing Ernie

Yesterday, under a tree in the park, I told myself that I will end this writing on the seventh of December, two years to the day that Ernie died.

Everything has its season, and the Season of my Greatest Darkness is coming to a close. Perhaps the Season of Writing is, too.

I’ve come a long way on this journey without Ernie. Or am I without him? He’s so much a part of who I am that I feel a hybrid — half Ernie, half Ernestina.

Yes, I fell in love with Ernie only after he died. With a rueful smile, he would probably say: Better late than never, Ernestina.

Ernie was both an optimist and a fantasist. He tended to sweeten life. Yet he was also a realist. He knew the truth. Perhaps he didn’t know the whole truth, but he knew a great part of it. Sometimes he let me in on it.

I miss him. I miss him. So many times I long to know his thoughts or his feelings about something I think or something I do. About anything, really. About the orange marmalade seasoned with tarragon I bought at the farm market. Or the chapter “How I Got Stronger and Smarter Instead of Stupider and Sadder” by Ellen Gilchrist, from her book The Writing Life. What would Ernie think about this writing?

I long to talk of Joshua with him. I really miss that. I miss any conversation with him. To follow how his mind moves, and for my mind to move in response to his — such a joy that would be.

I think now that people are far more different than we are alike. We all need food and shelter and sleep and love and meaningful work. Beyond that, we are vastly different people, with different talents and inclinations and experiences and history.

To come upon a person as alike to me as Ernie was, is a miracle. I caught only a glimpse of him, yet I’m grateful for the glimpse.

I’m grateful for all the help I’ve been given . . . other writers with their writing, friends with their wisdom, farmers with their food, crickets with their chirps, trees with their shade, the sun with its warmth.

Gratitude. In these past two years, I’ve come to feel grateful, too.