The challenge of being alone.....

My dear friends and family,
Its Saturday evening, I'm sitting here at my desk with its big monitor and fast computing system, I have a Starbucks Americano that I've been sipping on for a couple hours, fresh groceries in the kitchen, just had a multi grain bagel with avocado and am now sipping a very tall glass of water which I know I need.

I'm missing my Moon, a woman I met over a year ago, younger than me, certainly more beautiful than me, a bright, strong, loving and caring woman, fast driver, incredibly loyal and faithful to those she loves, every day she spends hours on Face time audio with Crystal, her 20 year old daughter who lives with a grandma in Singapore, is in school, performs by singing popular songs both sacred and secular, does some modeling and depends on her mother, Moon, for advice, emotional strength and a foundation to life.  Moon never turns her away but listens, argues, cares and is there for her.  Its pretty amazing to observe and I enjoy talking to Crystal too when I'm there since she mostly talks on speaker and Crystal speaks perfect English as well as perfect Mandarin.

Each evening as Moon's day comes to a close she calls her mom who has spent her entire day with her dad who has been in the hospital for nearly as long as we have known each other.  He is older and has many health problems, has little memory of the past and does not always cooperate with mom, drives away nurses with his medical conditions.  Mom is ready for her precious time with Moon, a time of peace and normal with the daughter she loves.  This time together happens every day and sometimes in the morning as well as mom is on her way to the hospital.  Both Crystal and her mom just want Moon to come home as soon as possible, Crystal knows about me but her mom does not.  The concern is mom might be against me being in Moon's life since I am older and in light of her life with an older man she might not be accepting.  Our plan is for me to go to Singapore sometime after Moon gets home and is settled and meet mom and try to win her over, once she can meet me, learn how I cared for my wife for 11 years after she became ill and understand that I'm one of the good guys and will take good care of Moon in the future.

So this woman I care so much for knows how to really love her family and she extends that love to her friends too, she is often at her sewing machine fixing their clothes, putting zippers in, altering the clothes to be more attractive and fit better.  She is a caring and skillful friend and will listen and advise her friends on what to buy, how to dress, what works and what does not work as they live their lives.

So I'm lonely tonight, having spent 4 fun days with her where we tried many kinds of food, all of it amazingly good, where we shopped, took in a great movie, LaLa Land, she loves music but was critical of some of the decisions the characters made in the movie.  She is vastly different than anyone I've ever known before and sometimes we argue, heatedly but her love is solid and deep and I trust her with my heart.

I'm working, cranking out appraisals and at my feet is George, my orange and white kitty and in the doorway to the office is MooMoo the black and white kitty that looks like a cow.  When I'm here they tend to hang around and rub against me purring and enjoying life.

So I send my love and affection to each of you tonight, today I took Kallie to lunch, then napped at Nikki and Steve's house when I came back and finally made it home.

Tim