Dear Kristine,

I'm writing this to you while sitting at your childhood desk, in the home you grew up in, with all the deep familiarities that you must feel, and that at the same time are so foreign to me. And yet, because of the way our lives have unfolded and the love we share, I couldn't feel more at home.

Wherever you are, is my home. And now, for the rest of what will only seem like the blink of an eye, wherever you and I are will feel like home to Aaliyah.

Aaliyah is truly a blessed soul, in a world of unmentionable pain and suffering, to have such an angel in our midst is beyond explanation. And for her to have a mother like you, well, this is the rarest of combinations.

My only wish for my family, my truest loves in this fleeting world, Kristine and Aaliyah…

These forms we seem to be are cups floating in an ocean of living consciousness.
They fill and sink without leaving an arc of bubbles or any good-bye spray.
What we are is that ocean, too near to see, though we swim in it and drink it in.
Don't be a cup with a dry rim, or someone who rides all night and never knows the horse beneath his thighs, the surging that carries him along.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Happy Mother's Day, today and everyday.