Letter to a loved one having a hard time

A lot of people I love are having particularly painful chapters right now. Some of them are far away. This letter is to all of them as if they were one and to you, too.

Dearest,

I was walking along Rye Lane this morning and saw so many people and none of them were you. There was someone with more facial piercings than I have ever seen on a person - it was fewer than the man I remember from my childhood Guinness World Records book but more than any fleshy example I’ve seen. I also saw a woman screaming a lot of expletives outside the housing office, and insisting she didn’t need somebody. I don’t know if she was wearing earbuds or if she was shouting into the air.