Journal entry by Emilie Britton —
"How lucky I am to have had something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
-Winnie the Pooh
November 28th marked a whole year since Bill died. It's amazing how milestones like death can sneak up on you even when you've spent every single day missing that very person. For this one year anniversary, Ali and I spent the day with dear friends making our annual Christmas cookie favorites. As many of you know, Bill begged us all to make chocolate chip cookies every year on Christmas cookie day. He even went so far as to write and sing a song dedicated to his love of these cookies. We always told him no! Chocolate chip cookies are NOT Christmas cookies, but we enjoyed his song and game all the same. While we all did miss what hilarious lyrics he surely would have come up with this year, we did cave a little and Julie brought some of her famous Bill-approved chocolate chip cookies for us all to enjoy that day. It was a really nice way to honor him.
The following weekend John, Ali, Livi and I headed up to the North Shore to spread his ashes in his personally requested, all-time favorite places. Ali had a playlist running of his favorite albums from the day we went through all his records last year. Admittedly, all three of us knew very few of the songs and eventually set it to Beach Boys Greatest Hits for us all to sing along. On Saturday, we sprinkled a bit of Bill in Two Harbors, Tettegouche, Temperance, Gooseberry Falls, and Grand Marais. Our last stop was Banning State Park to spread some ashes next to a cairn made for Mila there two years ago. All three of us loved feeling like they will spend the winter together playing in the frozen waterfall and dancing in between the trees. The weekend was pretty windy and nippy but we found some wonderful melted pockets of water that felt just perfect to lay him to rest for the winter. Saturday morning of the trip, I woke up humming the words to "I Wanna Linger", a song I probably haven't heard or thought of since Girl Scout camp as a kid. It was unexpected, became a pretty special moment of the trip, and I have been singing it ever since. The link is to a recording of Julie singing this song to some of the photos we took that weekend. I hope you all enjoy.
With love,
Emilie
I Wanna Linger
Hmmm, I want to linger.
Hmmm, A little longer.
Hmmm, A little longer,
Here with you.
Hmmm, It's such a perfect night.
Hmmm, It doesn't seem quite right.
Hmmm, That this should be,
My last with you.
Hmmm, And as the years go by,
Hmmm, I'll think of you and sigh.
Hmmm, This is good night
And not goodbye.
Hmmm I want to linger.
Hmmm A little longer.
Hmmm A little longer,
Here with you.
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