They go in threes

 Not sure what to do with this piece: Any ideas/thoughts??

I thought I saw you the other day. You were in the food storage aisle at the grocery, next to tin foil. I remember the tin foil hat you made me.

I saw you in the woods, walking through a copse of trees. I tried to catch up to you. I asked myself later if it was you, but how could it be?

After you went away.

I dreamed about you, me, us every night for one year. Then nothing.

Then, I began to see you all around me.

It was unsettling and reassuring.

We had this way of talking, finishing each other’s sentences. We laughed. When I was sad or afraid, you would place your hand on top of my head. I’m here, you said.

Here, but not here.

After the estate sale, after winnowing down, giving away, selling off years of togetherness, I kept the Ma and Pa pig salt ’n’ pepper set. So ridiculous to be the one thing. The thing is: I miss you.

Sometimes your cell phone still calls me. I recently put it away, in a drawer, letting the battery run down.

Then one night I saw you on TV. In the background, an extra. In a pretend food court. The next night, in an elevator shot. So quick but unmistakable. I binged a whole series hoping to find you again.

In a corner of the YouTube universe I found you. There was a reel from 1905, a street scene with moving model Ts and horse-drawn wagons, the intersection of the city bustling with chaotic jay walking and weird jerky stop motion effects. I spied you wearing Edwardian costume.

Having escaped the confines of time, you are everywhere. In every moment, every experience, in things both animate and inanimate. The dog, dog dish, the water in his bowl. All the elements that make up life, the cosmos, the mind. Whatever defines fact from fiction, separates fantasy from hard-edged reality. I exist in a nether land, with you.

Without you.

Like a home without an address, a displaced person, stateless, after the war.

So I go to the store, go online, go to the woods to be with you. If only to catch a glimpse.

They go in threes is something I've heard. 

Dolly, Gloria Steinem, Wendell Berry. Icons. Activists in their own way. 

Of course, every day we lose way more than three. In Nepal/Tibet border there were at least a 1,000. A friend of mine had to put down his dog. It's a hundred million losses. But, yet. They are everywhere. Gone and not gone. Still with us.