.
Day number 5 on the road. I'd hoped to be there by now. But the road has what the road will have.
Today, leaving western Nebraska, a late start. My planning mind was off a day, and what I'd thought was the short day was, in fact, not. But it's alright.
This land is beautiful. So clear, the geologic record: I always feel like I am in a submarine, a submersible, not an over-land car. I am driving in the ocean, driving under the ocean. Saw my first herd of pronghorn antelope just outside of Elk Mountain, Wyoming. I stopped at the same rest-stop we did back in 2006. It wasn't a hard day.
And then. And then, the soil began to change. From yellow and brown to streaks of red. The land changed from ocean bottom to sand cliffs. The mesas rose in the distance. I switched the stereo from dance music (to keep me awake) to Robbie Robertson, because it seemed appropriate. I am singing Ghost Dance, thinking of our trip, of how we talked about the history of this land, what it's seen, what happened out here. And then.
And then, before I realize I am this close, I am on top of Flaming Gorge. I am here, where we were, exactly where we were, and Robbie Robertson's "Golden Feather" comes on the stereo. I am crying. I hear. I hear the stones you picked up, all those years ago, the ones beside your box of ashes here on the passenger seat. I hear those stones begin to sing. They do. They sing to be so close to home.
I do not want to stop. I do not want to stop. But they are singing. I have to give them back. They want to go home, and I have to let them go. I pull off the exit, crying, resisting. I do not want to go. This is wrong. Wrong to be here. But I drive. Past the place where we got gas. Past the place where we ate Mexican food, grouchy from too long on the road. I pull over as I hear (yes, I hear) your ashes beside me begin to speak. Ask to be released here. The stones have kept on singing. Your ashes, what is left of you, an excited impulse. I open the passenger side door. The pot of my one houseplant falls out, cracks on the pavement. I remove the stones. I remove the small bag of your ashes, and shake you out into the palm of my hand. Shaking. Shaking. There are big pieces here, not dust.
The stones are singing. We have been here. This is where we turned off. Where we drove off down into the winding gorge, where we cried over slaughtered skinned coyotes, where you drove the car over too-steep embankments. Looking for a place to camp. Where you spent hours the next morning finding just the right stones, the two heavy, white stones we took home, another 4000 miles back, to sit on the bookshelf, holding words.
And now - they want to go back.
I scatter you. A small handful, here on the grass between road and sidewalk. I scatter. And then I place a stone. Oh.
Oh, I see now. This is a gravestone. A headstone, a marker you yourself picked out, painstakingly searched for, the last time we were here. It is right. It is right. To scatter you here beneath a stone you chose yourself.
The other stone - offers to stay. To stay with me. One with you, one for me. A pair of matched stones, broken, but connected.
As soon as the ashes are sent, the stone placed, I am fine again. Calm. I feel you. For the first time this trip, my love, I feel you. I know you here with me.
And I drive down through the mountains, as rain begins again, down a road we did not drive. A path we did not take. You are buried here, my love. And I continue on.
.
Showing posts with label god. Show all posts
Showing posts with label god. Show all posts
Friday, September 13, 2013
Sunday, November 11, 2012
times and changes
.
Haven't written here for a bit. That's not true. I have written here, I just haven't posted anything.
.
I feel a million miles away, and I do not like where I am. Like our life never happened, I repeat it as though it's a fiction. I read things I wrote in those first months and feel nothing, until I do. And then it is a freight train. This happened to me.
.
I close up the garden I started that year Before. I touch soil I turned when he was here, when life was what it Was. I don't want this garden anymore - like so many things, it has stopped being fun. It has stopped being good. And to leave it feels strange, letting go of one other home, one other place in my life that was life. To let go of what was ordinary and normal, knowing it no longer fits.
.
Watching election season via facebook has shown me a lot of things that no longer fit. That I no longer want to find a place to fit. Tangential friendships ended, not simply because their political views are vastly different than mine, but because I see how their political views are used as a weapon of hate. Ending friendships even when our political views are the same, because I see the same seething hatred underneath their emphatic shouting about love. I don't want these lies in my life. The vast gulf between what you actually live and what you shout about. Ugliness is ugliness, no matter what ideals you're voting for.
.
Four years ago, this whole life was different. The poll lines were a party. Matt brought me a thermos of tea, and we all hung out in the parking lot, waiting our turn to go vote. There was hope and fun and silliness. We were one big neighborhood. At home, we stayed up late to watch the election results. We watched and listened and heard. It was good.
This year, I talk out loud to you, inside the polling booth. And then I remember that other people can hear me, standing just behind the canvas flaps. I stand there muttering and weeping that you should be here with me. Goofing around as we did the last time we voted - just a week or two Before. We voted for a friend of yours, running in a local election for who-knows-what. After we voted, we walked through the park, naming all the trees we could name. All of this I brought with me into that little canvas booth, filling in ovals, talking out loud, wishing you were there. There was no party in the parking lot. There was no sense of one big happy neighborhood. There was only me, in the car, parked and texting about the difference between four years ago and now.
.
Haven't written here for a bit. That's not true. I have written here, I just haven't posted anything.
.
I feel a million miles away, and I do not like where I am. Like our life never happened, I repeat it as though it's a fiction. I read things I wrote in those first months and feel nothing, until I do. And then it is a freight train. This happened to me.
.
I close up the garden I started that year Before. I touch soil I turned when he was here, when life was what it Was. I don't want this garden anymore - like so many things, it has stopped being fun. It has stopped being good. And to leave it feels strange, letting go of one other home, one other place in my life that was life. To let go of what was ordinary and normal, knowing it no longer fits.
.
Watching election season via facebook has shown me a lot of things that no longer fit. That I no longer want to find a place to fit. Tangential friendships ended, not simply because their political views are vastly different than mine, but because I see how their political views are used as a weapon of hate. Ending friendships even when our political views are the same, because I see the same seething hatred underneath their emphatic shouting about love. I don't want these lies in my life. The vast gulf between what you actually live and what you shout about. Ugliness is ugliness, no matter what ideals you're voting for.
.
Four years ago, this whole life was different. The poll lines were a party. Matt brought me a thermos of tea, and we all hung out in the parking lot, waiting our turn to go vote. There was hope and fun and silliness. We were one big neighborhood. At home, we stayed up late to watch the election results. We watched and listened and heard. It was good.
This year, I talk out loud to you, inside the polling booth. And then I remember that other people can hear me, standing just behind the canvas flaps. I stand there muttering and weeping that you should be here with me. Goofing around as we did the last time we voted - just a week or two Before. We voted for a friend of yours, running in a local election for who-knows-what. After we voted, we walked through the park, naming all the trees we could name. All of this I brought with me into that little canvas booth, filling in ovals, talking out loud, wishing you were there. There was no party in the parking lot. There was no sense of one big happy neighborhood. There was only me, in the car, parked and texting about the difference between four years ago and now.
.
Monday, October 22, 2012
morning
Dog woke me up today, before 5 am. Outside, even with my grumbling, the sky is beautiful. Venus rising bright over the water, Jupiter up there somewhere I know. A few nights ago, another dog-induced morning, I caught my first ever glimpse of the space station as it zipped by, a million miles from nowhere close to here. I think of the sky over Wyoming, the borderlands of Utah, wondering what the sky is like right now, out there, what the sky would be like if we were out there again, 8 degrees, campfire, a whole landscape unknown and unseen.
I like to keep monks' hours, the darkness my favorite time of day. The sky lightens and Venus fades, and I have work to do. And oh, it reminds me of the poem I told him those last days Before. The day I picked him up from the airport, while we drove to dinner talking of Rumi, of arbitrary suffering, of my wanting to be in the business of joy, rather than this business of pain. He talked of Rumi and Shams, how there is no model of that kind of love these days; and I recited these lines to him:
a night full of talking that hurts
my worst held back secrets
everything has to do
with loving and not loving
this night will pass
and then we have work to do.
And with that, I have work to do.
.
I like to keep monks' hours, the darkness my favorite time of day. The sky lightens and Venus fades, and I have work to do. And oh, it reminds me of the poem I told him those last days Before. The day I picked him up from the airport, while we drove to dinner talking of Rumi, of arbitrary suffering, of my wanting to be in the business of joy, rather than this business of pain. He talked of Rumi and Shams, how there is no model of that kind of love these days; and I recited these lines to him:
a night full of talking that hurts
my worst held back secrets
everything has to do
with loving and not loving
this night will pass
and then we have work to do.
And with that, I have work to do.
.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
old friends
I saw
an old friend of yours
at the butcher shop today
I knew him by his voice
a cadence like yours
responding to his son
the way you did
the way I still do
it was his face that had me confused
once I turned around to look.
he brushed by
and I circled around again
to look
to see if I could match
the voice to the face, to the eyes
it was him
but I didn't ask. I didn't stop,
my hand on his arm, gentle,
saying his name
imagining he would know
just by touch
He looked past me
not only not recognizing me as me,
but not registering another person at all.
Game face. City face.
"typical," you'd say. "a little arrogant."
It shook me a little, in a nice way, almost.
to be so close to someone who knew you so well
and I regret now
that I didn't stop
didn't stop
to put my hand gently on his arm
and call you close to us again,
to me.
.
happy birthday babe. we miss you. we all miss you.
a whole lot of us silent and silently
we all miss you
together, apart.
.
an old friend of yours
at the butcher shop today
I knew him by his voice
a cadence like yours
responding to his son
the way you did
the way I still do
it was his face that had me confused
once I turned around to look.
he brushed by
and I circled around again
to look
to see if I could match
the voice to the face, to the eyes
it was him
but I didn't ask. I didn't stop,
my hand on his arm, gentle,
saying his name
imagining he would know
just by touch
He looked past me
not only not recognizing me as me,
but not registering another person at all.
Game face. City face.
"typical," you'd say. "a little arrogant."
It shook me a little, in a nice way, almost.
to be so close to someone who knew you so well
and I regret now
that I didn't stop
didn't stop
to put my hand gently on his arm
and call you close to us again,
to me.
.
happy birthday babe. we miss you. we all miss you.
a whole lot of us silent and silently
we all miss you
together, apart.
.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
taize
I love Taize. I hadn't been "before." An acquaintance of mine encouraged me to go, just a few months after. For awhile, it was so powerful for me. Back then, I had no self-consciousness, didn't have the energy to notice or care about the effect my presence had on others. Not like I was wailing loudly, certainly, but I cried as I needed to. However. My acquaintance was also one of the organizers of the weekly meditation, and she kept making it a point to bring these intense poems to the meditation. Intense as in often having drowning imagery. I found it a bit obnoxious. Enough! Yes I know you "get" me (or think you do)! Stop it please! But I was too irritated, and self-conscious, and did I mention - irritated, to tell her directly. So - I stopped going.
I also started to be more conscious of my presence, and therefore, I bite my lip a lot more, dissociate a lot more. I don't like this change. It means I am no longer comfortable at churches or meditations, because I cry, and I know I cry, and I know people see me cry. And then they ask me things, or they give me "meaningful looks," which makes me want to slap them, or just makes me never want to go to public things that will likely make me cry. I only want to go to things where there is a lovely cocoon of silence and space. That would be great.
Anyway. There is a second Taize in town now, which is pretty incredible in its own right, as this is a small town. I went tonight. It is so pretty. Even feeling self-conscious, it is so pretty. I would make such a great nun, if there were a tradition I believed. I can feel it when I am there. Leaving the meditation, I noticed the pastor of the church. I recognized the pastor. I had just been thinking of him a few days ago. He was my supervisor way back in my very first social services job. Many, many years ago. I left to go to grad school, and he left because his partner had just died. So I was stunned to see him there. I said his name. He said, "yes?" I said his full name. He said, "um, yes?" I told him who I am and how I know him. He remembered. That was awesome. He asked what I am doing now.
I wouldn't answer that question directly for most people. For most people who don't already know, I sidestep and move away as quickly as I can. For people who do already know, I tend to say "doing the best I can," sidestep, and move away quickly. To my old supervisor, I said, "I am recovering, or trying to; my partner died recently." He nodded. "You remember that my partner died while I was at (the place where we worked)." We talked a bit. It was comfortable and nice.
Anyway, again. I don't know why I'm sharing this. In fact, I was saying to him how so many people who don't know me, who were not close to me "before," suddenly became so very interested in me. How for a private person, the attention is, was and still is, too much. And yet, here I am, out in relative public. It is really weird. Mostly, I meant to say - Taize is really beautiful, everybody. If you have a Taize gathering near you, check it out. I also just meant to say - how neat is it that I ran into someone I very much respected when I was a young whippersnapper.
And, as soon as I got in the car, I went to call Matt and tell him.
**********************************************************************************
I also started to be more conscious of my presence, and therefore, I bite my lip a lot more, dissociate a lot more. I don't like this change. It means I am no longer comfortable at churches or meditations, because I cry, and I know I cry, and I know people see me cry. And then they ask me things, or they give me "meaningful looks," which makes me want to slap them, or just makes me never want to go to public things that will likely make me cry. I only want to go to things where there is a lovely cocoon of silence and space. That would be great.
Anyway. There is a second Taize in town now, which is pretty incredible in its own right, as this is a small town. I went tonight. It is so pretty. Even feeling self-conscious, it is so pretty. I would make such a great nun, if there were a tradition I believed. I can feel it when I am there. Leaving the meditation, I noticed the pastor of the church. I recognized the pastor. I had just been thinking of him a few days ago. He was my supervisor way back in my very first social services job. Many, many years ago. I left to go to grad school, and he left because his partner had just died. So I was stunned to see him there. I said his name. He said, "yes?" I said his full name. He said, "um, yes?" I told him who I am and how I know him. He remembered. That was awesome. He asked what I am doing now.
I wouldn't answer that question directly for most people. For most people who don't already know, I sidestep and move away as quickly as I can. For people who do already know, I tend to say "doing the best I can," sidestep, and move away quickly. To my old supervisor, I said, "I am recovering, or trying to; my partner died recently." He nodded. "You remember that my partner died while I was at (the place where we worked)." We talked a bit. It was comfortable and nice.
Anyway, again. I don't know why I'm sharing this. In fact, I was saying to him how so many people who don't know me, who were not close to me "before," suddenly became so very interested in me. How for a private person, the attention is, was and still is, too much. And yet, here I am, out in relative public. It is really weird. Mostly, I meant to say - Taize is really beautiful, everybody. If you have a Taize gathering near you, check it out. I also just meant to say - how neat is it that I ran into someone I very much respected when I was a young whippersnapper.
And, as soon as I got in the car, I went to call Matt and tell him.
**********************************************************************************
wow.
To me, this little kid is evidence of reincarnation. Or, at least evidence of some larger mystery, which is always good for me to see.
(thanks cicero for sharing this link. And - trying to remember where I have just seen similar tracks, though I don't think we have cougar here.)
(thanks cicero for sharing this link. And - trying to remember where I have just seen similar tracks, though I don't think we have cougar here.)
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
grown-up words
I am maybe fortunate in that I have very very few people, if any, demanding that I be who I used to be, which is one of the perks of being a relative loner and a great ignorer of opinions. I have a feeling my parents would like me to be doing things differently, but that is a much more long-standing issue than Just Grief. I know I have a few friends who would love to see me happier, who would very very much like to hang out and spend time with me - ANY time with me, and who respectfully and quietly wait. I definitely have a few people who are very uncomfortable around me, but try to pretend they aren't. I have a couple of new not-yet-friends who sometimes say they are stunned I am still standing, even now, and who listen to me ramble on if I feel like rambling, or just allow me to shovel out their barns or feed their cows.
I have at least one friend from long ago who dislikes and disapproves of the way I am handling life. She was incredible in the first few weeks, then disappeared for months, only to call on the actual anniversary date to scold me for not being a better friend to her. I am thankful that when we did talk, she used incredible grown-up skills, showed beautiful compassion and understanding, and was all-around lovely. We aren't really friends anymore. We haven't said it, we didn't say it, but I have the sense that she respects my truth and my choices, even though she thoroughly disagrees, and wants it to be different. She wants a different me, and she can't have it. It's weird, because randomly thinking about who I would want at my "deathbed," I thought of her. Even though we aren't actively friends, and hadn't been for a few years before this Event, either. Something about someone who can use grown-up words, though, makes me like them forever, even when our paths divulge and we disappoint each other in pretty major ways.
A couple of years ago, I ghostwrote a couples counseling workbook. One of the best things I got out of the whole experience was language for desire and disappointment:
I have at least one friend from long ago who dislikes and disapproves of the way I am handling life. She was incredible in the first few weeks, then disappeared for months, only to call on the actual anniversary date to scold me for not being a better friend to her. I am thankful that when we did talk, she used incredible grown-up skills, showed beautiful compassion and understanding, and was all-around lovely. We aren't really friends anymore. We haven't said it, we didn't say it, but I have the sense that she respects my truth and my choices, even though she thoroughly disagrees, and wants it to be different. She wants a different me, and she can't have it. It's weird, because randomly thinking about who I would want at my "deathbed," I thought of her. Even though we aren't actively friends, and hadn't been for a few years before this Event, either. Something about someone who can use grown-up words, though, makes me like them forever, even when our paths divulge and we disappoint each other in pretty major ways.
A couple of years ago, I ghostwrote a couples counseling workbook. One of the best things I got out of the whole experience was language for desire and disappointment:
It is okay to want something from a friend or love that they are not currently giving. It is okay to express your grief about said shortfall or disappointment. It is okay to ask them if they would be willing to give what you are asking. However. If they are not willing, or simply cannot give you what you are asking, it is not okay to shame, harass, manipulate, judge, correct, and/or constantly try to change that person into the person you want them to be. If they can give what you ask, great. If they can't, and that disappointment is more than you can bear, bow out gracefully and Leave.
I know I used to have such skills; I used to be able to tolerate such discussions. Matt and I were doing awesome with this stuff. We were kicking love butt with our discussions of disappointment and needs. It was easy, and fun, and when it wasn't, we were massively brave anyway. The current me will get the heck out of such discussions quite quickly these days; I will wiggle out quite uncomfortably. It is different trying to be a grown-up with someone I don't know and trust as I do matt. But I can still imagine what a grown-up set of skills might be. If I ever have need of them again.
On other peoples' behalf, though, I am all about respectful and truthful communication. When I hear of someone being less-than-respectful to one one my widow people, I want to (aggressively, protectively) hand that person a little prompt card, suggesting a wee better way of communicating their needs...
"The reality of your life right now is painful/overwhelming/weird/boring/not fun and I am just not digging it. Can you please go back to the life I enjoyed more? Can you please experiment with subject matter I find more interesting? Can you please change the way you are responding to this whole thing? No? Well then I will be self-responsible AND respectful enough to bow out gracefully at this time. Self-responsible, in that I will not continue something that is not feeding me, and respectful in that I honor your path even as it takes you away from me. "
That would be so cool ~ for those people I know who have un-graceful people they know, making judgments and demands on their lives. Not exactly fair that I would expect direct communication in others but not be able to tolerate receiving it myself, but there you go. You can't take the counselor out of me, apparently. I want other people to have the skills, I want the people I know to hear respectful, truthful, honest things. I just don't currently want anyone using those skills on me.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
sunday the 12th
seventeen calendar months today. For some reason, that seems very very much far more worse than 74 weeks. The other day, I imagined someone saying to me, "but he's been gone a year," and I said - "No. It can't be. That isn't. No." And then I realized - he has. He has been gone a year, and then some. A year and five months, today.
I went to mass, heathen that I am, and Mike's homily was perfect for me, as always. Well, as often. I learned that today is the 3rd sunday of advent, also called The Sunday Of Joy. (it is also the feast day of the virgin of guadalupe, which he didn't mention, but I already knew) So - the Sunday of Joy. He went on to describe the difference between happiness and joy. He took a detour to talk about grief - when our hearts are shattered, when we have lost one we hold most dear, when there is no happiness, there may be joy, somewhere, in knowing that our separation is only temporary. We must hold our hearts, feel our brokenness, and all the while know our separation is temporary.
I try to believe that. At least (at most), to know that there is more to this world and whatever lies around it than I will ever know. There is more heaven jammed into this place right now than most would know, and who am I to say whether our separation is temporary or no. I can't imagine love would disappear. I need to know, and believe, and remind myself, that love Is. And when my time comes to join the compost pile of this life, I have to believe I'll know it's time, because matt comes on over to pick me up. Rests his hands on the chair opposite mine, and just says "ready?"
I wish (though not really) that I believed in any one thing, so I could, I don't know, join something and feel like it fit. No, I really don't. But I do like churches, and I always have. Especially when they are empty. If there were some Order who would take me, take me in all my spirit of gods but not the letters of people, take me without pinning me into one way and one way only, then I would probably become the nun my high school guidance counselors thought I would be (much to the surprise and hysterical laughter of my friends at the time). I've always been a monk of my own order. My fellow goofy monk has gone on ahead, and I am not digging this order alone. My match and my equal, my peer and my friend. I miss you my love.
Happy third sunday, 74th sunday, and day of Our Lady who brings surprise tangible gifts of her love.
I went to mass, heathen that I am, and Mike's homily was perfect for me, as always. Well, as often. I learned that today is the 3rd sunday of advent, also called The Sunday Of Joy. (it is also the feast day of the virgin of guadalupe, which he didn't mention, but I already knew) So - the Sunday of Joy. He went on to describe the difference between happiness and joy. He took a detour to talk about grief - when our hearts are shattered, when we have lost one we hold most dear, when there is no happiness, there may be joy, somewhere, in knowing that our separation is only temporary. We must hold our hearts, feel our brokenness, and all the while know our separation is temporary.
I try to believe that. At least (at most), to know that there is more to this world and whatever lies around it than I will ever know. There is more heaven jammed into this place right now than most would know, and who am I to say whether our separation is temporary or no. I can't imagine love would disappear. I need to know, and believe, and remind myself, that love Is. And when my time comes to join the compost pile of this life, I have to believe I'll know it's time, because matt comes on over to pick me up. Rests his hands on the chair opposite mine, and just says "ready?"
I wish (though not really) that I believed in any one thing, so I could, I don't know, join something and feel like it fit. No, I really don't. But I do like churches, and I always have. Especially when they are empty. If there were some Order who would take me, take me in all my spirit of gods but not the letters of people, take me without pinning me into one way and one way only, then I would probably become the nun my high school guidance counselors thought I would be (much to the surprise and hysterical laughter of my friends at the time). I've always been a monk of my own order. My fellow goofy monk has gone on ahead, and I am not digging this order alone. My match and my equal, my peer and my friend. I miss you my love.
Happy third sunday, 74th sunday, and day of Our Lady who brings surprise tangible gifts of her love.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
math
I don't believe in causality. I don't believe that thinking good will bring more good, any more than I think that thinking bad will bring more bad. For me, the law of attraction, or believing in the law of attraction, is pure hubris; I don't have that much power. If you put that law the other way 'round, somehow I deserved this, or earned this, because I thought the wrong thoughts. That puts a whole lot of responsibility and power on my little ol' mind, and I just can't take that on. Currently, I believe that things are going to happen as they are going to happen, no matter which way I align my thoughts. What I can do with my thoughts is care for myself or beat the crap out of myself. I think that forcing myself, making myself, notice small beauty is not to bring more beauty my way, but to notice it right then because I desperately need it right then. Because it is, right then. But beauty doesn't make this okay. It doesn't subtract from this, make this less than what grand rot it is. The two are not related that way. I keep trying to do that, force current beauty to make this okay, and it can't. Beauty can come along to help you bear that moment you're in, but it's not there to take that moment away.
I think funky math is also what so many people do when they try to cheer us up: "look - he might be gone, but the sky is pretty," "look - other people love you," "look - your life can be even better than before," "look - here is some delicious sweet thing, aren't you glad you are still alive to taste this?!" "look - you get to learn things most of us don't understand." Look - look at all these little things you have in exchange for what you had. The equation does not balance out, no matter how bad my math skills may be. Nothing will ever make up for this, nothing will ever make the scales balance right again. The best life in the world will not be a fair exchange. You can't compare things that way and come out anything other than angry. Well, I can't.
I keep thinking about what michele wrote a couple of weeks ago on Widow's Voice -
That last line has helped me so much. Nothing that happens in this life, however long it is, will ever be greater than (>) my life before; my life before will not be less than (<). Nothing will ever make things equal (=). Nothing will subtract (-) from how awesome our life was. I don't know that there is or is not an absolute zero, because my math skills don't extend that far. But there is nothing to make this a fair exchange.
Everything that happens now simply sits beside me. Everything from that day on is and. Everything is in addition.
I think funky math is also what so many people do when they try to cheer us up: "look - he might be gone, but the sky is pretty," "look - other people love you," "look - your life can be even better than before," "look - here is some delicious sweet thing, aren't you glad you are still alive to taste this?!" "look - you get to learn things most of us don't understand." Look - look at all these little things you have in exchange for what you had. The equation does not balance out, no matter how bad my math skills may be. Nothing will ever make up for this, nothing will ever make the scales balance right again. The best life in the world will not be a fair exchange. You can't compare things that way and come out anything other than angry. Well, I can't.
I keep thinking about what michele wrote a couple of weeks ago on Widow's Voice -
I don't think of the differing ways I have filled in this loaded sentence to be a balance sheet. There is no way to measure out in even amounts what I lost and what I have gained. I didn't have a choice about my life circumstance. All I can do is make the most of what lies ahead, in honor of the potential that exists with each day that I draw breath. ... Not in exchange, but in addition.
That last line has helped me so much. Nothing that happens in this life, however long it is, will ever be greater than (>) my life before; my life before will not be less than (<). Nothing will ever make things equal (=). Nothing will subtract (-) from how awesome our life was. I don't know that there is or is not an absolute zero, because my math skills don't extend that far. But there is nothing to make this a fair exchange.
Everything that happens now simply sits beside me. Everything from that day on is and. Everything is in addition.
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