“Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love”. George Eliot
As often as this is the case, that we save our deepest look into love at the agony of our parting, I can honestly say it was not always the case for me. I found myself laying next to her feeling so deep, my love for her, I knew she must feel it radiating off my skin. I prayed for her. I celebrated her. I never thought I deserved her. But even still, the depths of that unconditional love for another person that I experienced once in a lifetime did not even scratch a shallow surface of the depths revealed to me in the agony of loss. It is an eternal abyss. We stare long into the darkness until their face fades away and all we see is our reflection.
Of my anger and loss, the greatest of these is the hatred I carry for myself. For in the end, we have no person to blame but ourselves. The shocking dichotomy of knowing your heart for a person and the love you have and the monster you see in the mirror cannot be reconciled. You start to forget all the sacrifices you made, the acts of love, dedication and commitment and you start to see yourself solely in the few bad moments and mistakes. A yoke of regrets dropped heavy around your neck you plow the fields of shame. The memories you grow hurt. The footprints you leave behind share no company. The depths of love reveals how far it will go by taking your heart into the abyss as company. Falling.
It is hard to say goodbye. It is impossible. Acceptance that every hope and dream is gone will come. But saying goodbye to a person you truly loved only returns to you as an ever present haunting ghost. Who are we to know if that even ends with the grave or will persist through whatever eternal life awaits. Maybe it is saying goodbye over and over again, head down toward the plowing of the field, bearing our yoke, feeling the pain, until each goodbye is easier. Or perhaps, as long as we continue to plow and seed that field we will continue to harvest the pain of loss. Without something or someone yoked beside you, you will only turn in endless circles. If there is any hope that God can deliver us it is in the hope that he may take up that yoke beside you and help you move forward and through the field- for as long as it takes. But even then, if the creator cannot take away the pain of your loss, how can we expect to ever truly say goodbye. Our penance is continually surrendering to God and feeling the pain of the hole left in our chest.
This is the reality of life. That some will love little and go on to live relatively happy carefree lives through every loss. And that some will love great and never fully climb from the grave they dug for themselves. “I will never forget this pain” it says in Lamentations. Nor should we. If you are ever fortunate enough to remove that yoke of regrets, never be the fool who returns to that field of shame again. Remember how you suffered. The ghost that visits you. The pain you harvested for so long. I will never forget this pain. Or this shame. Or this sadness. Loneliness, grief, disappointment, anger, abandonment, heartache, hopelessness, exhaustion, hatred, fear. These are the deep waters on the other side of true love. Their depths can certainly drown you, and at best, leave you changed for the rest of your life.
If this sounds painful, it is. If you have lost and don’t understand the depth of this pain then you never truly loved. Avoidance is not a long-term cure for walking away from someone or losing someone. It is the root infection that will one day bring you right back to your knees. It is hard to say goodbye when you still feel every bit of your loss. But, as it has been said, unsaid goodbyes and those left unexplained are the most painful. So say goodbye every morning. And say goodbye every night. Do everything you can to stop seeding that field of shame.
“As the presence of those we love is as a double life, so absence, in its anxious longing and sense of vacancy, is as a foretaste of death.” — Anna Brownell Jameson
Living Phoenix 