Asha: Full

I have saved a few pictures from Richard Veil's scattered sites on the Internet, basically unused ones now, it seems: myspace, tribenet: does anyone ever go on myspace anymore?  My heart breaks over and over for him, for all the ones who loved this incomparably wonderful woman.  I wish I could tell him, "I see you in your grief, that which has brought something vulnerable and tender into your face along with unfathomable sadness."  Like Asha, no picture of him looks the same, something wonderfully changeable about both of their expressions.

I found a portrait tonight which he had titled "Full"--what a beautiful title for a portrait of a woman you love, such delicate evocativeness.  It is is quite different from other pictures of her I've seen:  I wonder, because of the softness of her face and the glow in her skin, and her hair, thicker than in other portraits, if she was carrying Anina here.  I do not know--but seeing this makes me wonder.  It is another one of her pictures in which I think she might speak at any minute; what's on the verge of her voice seems something funny or tender.  She obviously is in love with the person taking this portrait.  How much I hope that love, too, was so full for them many times in their brief marriage that their hearts immersed in it. Such memories turn, in time, to balm on the surface of grief, a talisman.

Every step into this book is like walking on glass shards, dear readers.  I am preparing to contact her husband and a few other people here in Santa Cruz, so afraid to touch the meniscus of grief for fear of opening a floodgate for them.  I pray to my Higher Power, to Asha herself, to help me find the right words to ask so as not to further open up wounds I could never imagine in my worst nightmares.

And I say to Asha herself: you were beautiful and kind, and so, so full: of life,  of the baby in your belly, of laughter and kindness, and the bravery you carried to the very end of the road.