Tag: suffering (Page 3 of 4)

I Once Believed

May 21, 2013 / Tom

There was a time when I believed in something.

I believed that they were my family. I believed that I was their son. I believed that I meant something to them. I believed their words. I believed who I was to them. I was more than just some guy brought into their family. I believed I was loved. I found importance there, and I found meaning.

I believed that they were my friends. I believed that they liked me. I believed that they laughed with me and at my jokes. I believed they saw something in me even if I had not yet seen it in myself. I believed they had faith, that their smiles were genuine, and that their friendship was based on who I was. I found peace there, and I found importance.

I believed that she was forever. I believed that the scars would heal, that I would be “fixed” and she would forever be there. I believed in the power of love even if I had no real idea of what love was, and I believed in the imminence of forgiveness even if I was uncertain of how to forgive. I believed she could make the pieces whole, and that the power I had found in the beauty of her smile would make the dream real and the nightmare over.

I believed that I was broken. I believed that I needed them to fix me. I believed in the guilt that I felt with every breath, and the surety of failure that was my constant companion. I believed I needed them to show me strength, to prove my value, and to make me something more than I felt I was.

Yes, I believed. I believed I was nothing. I believe I was something the ground would tread on. I believed in the darkness and I only dreamed of the light. I repeated the mantra of weakness as I gave others power over me. I abdicated the throne given to me at birth, and I let others control the kingdom of my life.

I believed in them because I did not believe in myself. I needed them because I did not know who I was. I feared being alone because I did not know the awesome company I keep in myself.

Now, in their absence, in their denial, in their outright rejection I find a beautiful sunrise. I find health. I find peace. I find a strength unimaginable yesterday. I realize they are not gods, and that it is patently unfair to expect others to give me what I cannot give to myself.

Most of all, I find a love for me. I find a joy in being with me, and I find those things make me able to love those in my life without need for definitions, of roles, and of a commitment that neither feels right nor feels necessary. I find the power to be honest not only with those in my life, but with myself. I find a great acceptance of my flaws, of my strengths and of my humanness. I find my center easily because my focus is not diverted out there.

And I am happy. For the first time in my life I feel truly happy.

So, in some respects I am grateful their words were meaningless and their devotion unreal. I am grateful for the tremendous loss that has brought me here. “For I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.” I am happy to have sunk to the bedrock of my life so that I could find the truth there. I am grateful for the climb out of the pit, and for the fact that she was nothing more than a hollow promise that did not exist outside of a fantasy. I needed the loss, and I needed the pain in order to discover something far greater than I have ever known in my life.

So, in letting go I have found nothing to hold on to. I have found surety in the bedrock on which I once stood that showed me the beauty around me. The hug of my children. The truth in their words that come in the hallowed words “Daddy, I love you.” The ability to stand up for my truth regardless of what others would say or do. The indescribable feeling of sitting with my children in a “family sandwich” telling silly jokes until we simply can’t think of another word to say. Then we are still, as if on cue, the three of us simply listening to whatever direction the Universe sends us in. We can find great joy in our sandwich, and we can find great joy in our aloneness because we are not defined by any of it.

I have discovered that I am whole, and that I am a perfect being even in my imperfectness. I need not be fixed for there is nothing broken. Yes, I laugh out loud at the thought that I needed anyone to be fixed. Now my choices are mine and mine alone. I no longer need have faith in anyone even though I have found faith in many. I no longer need pretend and fake a smile in the storm of false accusations and innuendo. Let them throw their stones, for my choice is to smile purely into the heart of their anger and speak my own truth regardless of what they do.

There is love here…much love, and it is now directed in the right place. Yes, there is great promise here.

In the End…

January 18, 2013 / Tom

In the end, it just became too much.

He kind of knew that the end was inevitable. There were just too many stories, too many challenges, too many things that did not seem real. He remained committed to an ideal that simply did not exist beyond his own mind, and in the end when his heart just could not bear the burden of the stories told by the mind, he had to go his own way.

He can’t blame her. No, he had tried to tell himself that what he saw was not real. He had tried to tell himself to believe, but in the final minute his heart gave way to the fact that the mantra no longer worked. No, this was all his fault. He could just not believe.

So, he let her go. He would miss her, and he would hurt for eternity. He would suffer. But he would grow from it all and find freedom. Even in the sadness of the moment he find an excitement in what was to come. He could feel it like an electricity flowing through his body tempered only by the desire that she could come along for the journey.

Human love seems to be an unpredictable animal within the experience of man. It bites his flesh and tears at his mind while it soothes and protects him. It ebbs and flows like a blue mechanical wave in a tiny glass box. When it flows it can be the most beautiful of experiences, and when it ebbs it can take the very life out of a man’s body. It can make him feel strong and weak at the same time. It can give him breath and strangle him. In its flow we feel invincible, but when it ebbs we search for strength from any place we dare look in the very discourse of untold weakness. We may pretend to be strong, but when the love of our life falters we all search for strength in the darkest of places. Eventually, for the weathered among us, we return to the light.

He felt weakness even in the strength. In that weakness he desperately tried to find something to hold on to. He would close his eyes and feel the warmth of her body next to his and hold on to that. Eventually that vision would fade, replaced by another sight that would challenge his heart again. He would tell himself it didn’t exist, and then he would turn to her because she was so good at convincing him it didn’t. He’d hold on to that truth until the next time. There would always be a next time.

He could never tell if she actually fought for him. He knew certainly that she fought with him, but he could never tell if she ever fought for him. He wanted to believe she had, that she hadn’t simply placed every burden of transformation squarely on him. He eventually just had to believe that those shadows he saw in their relationship would always be there, that the mysteries and the stories and the issues would continually come up. Eventually he had, had enough of it and he simply caved. He knew his own wounds well, and he could not withstand the flirtations and the issues that seemed to always come up in the middle of their story.

In the end he couldn’t expect or ask her to change it. She didn’t appear capable or willing. He was incapable of overlooking those things. He had changed quite a bit, but those wounds such behavior opened were simply too much for him to overlook. They were perfect together in every way other than the one he needed the most. His every effort went into changing that part of him, and in the end he failed and in the end he could not get up from falling yet again even as he prayed again for the voice that comforted him, the dream the sustained him, and the light he felt just by hearing her name in a crowded room.

In his fantasy she fought for him. In his dream she recognized this part of him and eliminated the shadows. She stood up, she caressed his face and told him it would be alright. In the mist of his heart she said “enough, what do I need to do for you” and then did it. In the fog of his mind she said “none of them matter, only you do. I will do whatever it takes to be with you.” That was his dream, and in his heart those words would have exploded into a warmth never seen before.

In the end she laughed at his assertion. In the end she said “goodbye”. In the end she simply walked away. No fight, just silence. In the end the silence spoke louder than any word she had ever said to him. In the end the absence of protest said more than any story she had ever told him. In the end it was simply the end. Nothing more.

So now the lights go out and the eyes close to squeeze out yet another tear. His lips allow another sigh and another sob as the silence reigns in the evening air. His mind journeys to where she is and his heart holds her one more time. She never knew these moments, and she may never discover them. He wanted to succeed here like he never wanted to succeed anywhere before in his life. He couldn’t, and in the end he failed his vision and his love. That’s his burden, and he would carry it for a lifetime. A great story was over, and in the end he cried his cries and sobbed his sobs as a testament not only to the failure, but to the great love in his heart.

In the end the love was there as it always would be. In the end he would scream her name and in the end he would see her once again. He knew it, he felt it, and it was a truth he could not escape. In the end it was truly all that he felt was real. In the end he wished there was no end at all.

I wish you could feel how I feel

And I wish I could feel how you feel

I wish I could know the truth through your eyes

And taste the taste from your lips

So that the next heartbeat, the next breath

Would be the only questions I would ever have.

∞

Geminid

December 14, 2012 / Tom

As I watched millions of years of existence end in a flash across this evening’s sky, I felt small, impermanent and grateful for the realization.

It all ends sometime, someday. In an instance what was ceases to be, and what is becomes the new reality. Across the darkened sky of our existence everything ends in a flash that, to some, is but an instant but to others is an eternity. In a moment of intense flame it ceases to be, and the sky again becomes dark save the few diamonds left to prove its existence. Everything returns to darkness; everything returns to light.

I walk to the darkest spot I can find, feeling the emptiness in my hands highlighted by the hope in my heart. Am I but a Geminid in her evening sky? Am I but a flash in the night sure to exist in one moment but be gone before the her eyes open again? Am I but a cold rock floating aimlessly in the nothingness sure to die in the heat of her atmosphere? Am I destined to be but a bright flame across her darkness, across my own darkness; a flame that burns intensely but for only a short period of time?

I look at those lonely hands, opening and closing them as if to prove they are mine. I can see her hand resting nicely in my own, warming the skin left cold by the evening air. I can feel her lean her head on my shoulder and I know. I am not a cold rock floating aimlessly in nothingness. I am one of the diamonds, burning brightly and lighting the way. If only I choose to be, and if only she lets me. Her and I are not them, those strange vestiges of past pains left to scramble in the light of love. We are the light, the source of contrast between the blackness and the timelessness of love. We are what we choose to be, either to be lost in the mix of the mind or found in the millions of suns proving to us that even the darkness is temporary.

So tonight as I am surrounded by the darkness and the destruction of travelers who simply got too close, I am warmed by the heat of love cascading through my soul and the light of the love we both share. Perhaps it is time for us both to take the past and turn it into a chunk of stone and push it into nothingness. Maybe it is time for us both to watch that rock burn in the air of love and vanish into space. I can almost see it, her hand tightly in mine as her head lies softly on my shoulder watching with a smile as those barriers burn away. I can see her smile as I turn to her and say, softly,

“I love you.”

We both know. We have always known. The Geminid is not the love that we share but the barriers we have created keeping us from it. We both surrender in an instant, and utter a silent vow that this time we will know the truth and it will be ours. We make it ours, we own as if it is all we will ever own, and it becomes the reality we cherish. Even as I close my eyes to dream this lovely dream, a prayer escapes my heart as the beautiful mediation begins.

Yes, my love, my fears are in that rock you just watched disintegrate. Yes, my love, I feel the truth around us. Yes, my love, I know you are here, and that you love me.

I have heard her say it in my ear at least a hundred times. “I love you.” So, I vow to her this moment a truth that speaks from that part of me only she can see when her mind is silent and her heart is open.

Yes, my love, my doubt has just burned away in that streak you saw across our sky. Yes, my love, I am here. Yes, my love, I believe in you. Yes, I am ready.

Such truth brings tears to my cheeks. I have never cried in my life combined as much as I have now. Cleansing, releasing, forgiving and, finally, surrendering. Like any good fighter just at that moment of surrender I find renewed fight to continue on. Now, I am finally on the canvas, staring up at her beautiful face thankful for the knockout blow.

Yes, I am done baby. Yes, I am ready to end the battle. Yes, I want to leave this place and walk alone with you. Let me, please. Thank you.

Soon, the Sun will rise above that place where the ground meets the sky. I’ve always loved that place, and it is there that I ask her to walk with me. I deserve the chance and so does she. A chance to smile in the light of love as we push the Sun above the horizon. A chance to walk together without the rocks falling all around us. A chance to know one another without the voices telling us stories that don’t exist here. Yeah, it’s time to walk my love…

♥

Go There, Be Happy (Poem)

November 11, 2012 / Tom

Who you turn to

In your time of need, that’s the One.

When lost in your sea of emotion

When the mind takes over

And proves to be an absent friend

The arms that comfort you

Are the arms where you should remain.

Who you talk to

In your moments of turmoil

When the world closes in on you

When the journey seems its longest

And peace seems some distant dream

That mind is the one you need know

The thoughts that should be cherished.

Comfort is not an illusion

It is a message.

A message from one heart to another

From your heart to the rest of you

That tells a simple story of love

and of where you need to be

And where you should return.

Go there, and be happy

Know it every day, every minute, every second

Even in those moments when very ground you tread

rumbles with its dissatisfaction.

Go there, and be happy

Knowing I go there with you

Sometimes with tears, sometimes with a beaming smile.

Go there, and be happy

Like flowers and grasses, bow your lips to the stream.*

And quench your thirst within the River.

I will see you there, someday.

*Rumi “Eternal Joy”

The Black Wall

November 7, 2012 / Tom

This was a vivid dream as real as any waking moment he had ever experienced. He walked alone a field so dark there was no form, and with each step a fear that there would be nothing which would hold him steady until the next foot fell. In the darkness he wondered, and there in the space within space he found himself questioning everything.

Off in the distance something shined like a star contrasting brightly against the emptiness. He approached warily, unsure not only of what it was but also unsure of the safety of the journey to it. In this darkness there was no security, only insecurity, and in this walk toward the light there was no guarantee that his feet would fall on steady ground. He couldn’t even see his feet, or the rest of him, let alone the ground that lie ahead. He just knew he couldn’t sit still, that he needed to move forward toward the star lit against the abyss. He wanted – he needed – to get to that spot where the light would show him all there was to see.

Slowly, almost painfully, he neared the light. He could now make out the form of a wall. It was a dark, black brick wall highlighted by a brilliant white mortar which reflected the light brightly. He could not see the source of the light, or the size of the wall but as he looked away the light only make the blackness surrounding him darker and more ominous. Somehow the wall itself made him feel both lonely and loved, as if somehow now he had found a purpose in the loneliness he had always felt and the hope that soon it would all end. So he pressed onward, painfully afraid of each step while joyfully hopeful in the journey.

The brightly-lit wall appeared to move toward him as he got closer as if it somehow sensed the fear he had in each step. It seemed to want to end his suffering although he thought it couldn’t possibly relate to such emotion. The wall could be nothing other than a wall, it had no ability to know him or his condition. It was just there, lit, tall, strong and unable to feel.

Soon he had to stop walking as the light began to hurt his eyes. It seemed to be harder to see in such bright, beautiful light than it was in the darkness. He had become so accustomed to the darkness that the light actually hurt him. He looked away, searching for comfort in the darkness while still desperately wanting to see the light. It was a slow, painful process, but soon he could look into the light without reaction. Then he could see a message written boldly in white scrawled across the wall. It wasn’t long from then that the message was clear.

“You may not live to see the end of this.”

He stood, frozen. The fear created within a lifetime came flooding to his face as his eyes began to let go a torrent of pent-up suffering. He dropped to his knees and sobbed. Yes, the end was near, and there was no certainty that he would live to see it.

As he sobbed uncontrollably he noticed through his blurred eyes the field in which he had walked. There were such beautiful flowers that extended as far as the eyes could see. Yes, he could see! Butterflies fluttered around him, some landing on his shoulders, others on his arms, still others on his head. They seemed to caress his soul, telling him “it will be all right, you are loved.” He looked out across the horizon not believing he had never seen any of this. The darkness wasn’t the only truth, there had always been this field, these flowers, the butterflies and the beauty that reached as far as the eyes could see. He had simply closed his eyes to it all, and when the smallest crack in his own blindness presented itself he found a light that lit the world. The journey hadn’t been a simple walk at all; it was his eyes being opened to the truth.

He turned to the wall that had given him hope and had inspired him toward his present moment. The light that had once lit it now lit everywhere. As he wiped his eyes and stood he read the message scrawled on it one final time. It had changed, and with a sigh and a swallow he read what it now said aloud.

“This is the end of it.”

He half-cried half-laughed at the revelation as a lone butterfly landed on his chest right where he now felt his heart beat loudly. He looked at her as she him and both seemed to know.

Love.

♥

The Gift of You (The Beach and the Ocean)

October 19, 2012 / Tom

“Touch me there, my love, and discover a truth worth finding” ~Tom Grasso

Sometimes he was like an island beach, and she was like an enormous ocean. He would hold on to his fears and she to hers. She’d be consumed by her identity of independence, of power, of depth and he his identity of pain, experience and a fascination with the destiny that left him here, as this island, longing for the sea. Both were so consumed by who they were that they failed to realize what happened when they touched at that place we call the “shoreline.” There, the ocean and the beach become one, and it is there that the greatest magic in the Universe turns water into a bit of sand and sand into a bit of water.

There is not much magic being the beach or the ocean. All it takes is an illusion and a desire to put that illusion above all others. Yes, we often put the illusion of who we are above the reality of who we are. We so identify with our waves, with our dunes, with our depth and with our coarseness that we neglect the wonderful experience occurring where the two meet. We are so dependent on the dream that we often tell ourselves that we love the dream and in the process destroy a dream far greater. We even suggest that there is nothing else as important to our existence as our identities and that we are done experiencing this existence beyond the boundaries we have created for ourselves.

There are times when I am so in love with being the beach or the ocean that I can not truly experience the shoreline. I will be so attached to the hot sand or the water’s depth that I will never fully know the experience of the place were the depths cool the sands, and the sands warm the water. If I hold fast to this notion, I will never see how much I love the ocean, or the beach, and I will never fully get to know that beauty that I AM.

We forget that many times the real strength, power and depth aren’t just found in the illusions of who we are, but in the ability to allow ourselves to enjoy the shoreline outside the box of who we think we are. It takes real courage and strength to give ourselves to another, to become the Lover, when we have created the idea of strength in only ourselves. It’s easy to pretend to have strength in separation when we find comfort there. It’s comforting to dream about truth in the separateness of I from you, of him from her, of me from us when that is what we have created. It takes no real courage to stand on your own two feet and stare the Universe in the eye when that is who you think you are. The real courage comes from stepping off the sand into the mud, of rising out of the depths into the that place that is neither water nor sand but a bit of both. We step out of our box into the wet sand and often feel fear we want to run from. It gives us great comfort to hide in our secure box and somehow suggest that it takes remarkable strength to be there.

We are free to experience this existence in the way we want. Free will, the beauty and the bane of the human experience, is the sole mechanism by which we convert our ideas and thoughts into a tangible reality. We can lie to ourselves that we have no shame there even as we put the proverbial fig leaf on our most private of areas and hide ourselves from one another. We are free to profess our strength and our power and our independence even as we display none of it. We cater to fear, some of which shows itself as unreasonable anger and some of which shows itself as unbending inconsideration. Other times that fear is demonstrated as pain, the sand suffering in not meeting the water, and the ocean suffering in not meeting the sand. So we attach ourselves to what we know…pain, fear, or some other false sense of security. We all seem to relive our chosen stories when we simply fear walking from the beach to test the waters where the waves kiss our sandy feet.

A chosen few seem to find great pleasure at the shoreline. They take a great risk in giving themselves to their Lover, but with that risk often comes great reward. There is Heaven in that place where Lovers meet, a certain paradise fraught with undertows, riptides and strong currents. Heaven can certainly become hell from time to time, but to those who brave their minds and their fears to walk in the surf ecstasy is the answer to the challenges of their humanity. Because they speak a language only their Lover can understand, those souls indulge their fears and find solace in one another. They learn to not only give to each other, but to take from each other. They can still be who they are as individuals, but they also find that the line where they meet one another is a place where they find a source of great strength both inside and outside of themselves. See, the shoreline doesn’t just exist where two souls meet, it is also the place inside ourselves were our fears meet our love, where our minds, hearts and souls all mesh into an undeniable passion for another person.

That passion is beautiful. That love is Divine. That expression of human fear creates such a wonderful manifestation of human potential in love. Take a chance if you will. Express it freely if you can. Give in to it if you are able. Even while we are fine in being alone and even as we love who we are, there is a certain wonderfulness in offering yourself completely to another being who is doing the same. Trust is the result. Faith is the byproduct. You are a gift, and it would be such a shame not to offer that gift to someone who would do the same for you and to someone who breathes you in with each breath, and who lives to be by your side.

Live this truth and find a foothold in the ocean tide where fear can’t last for long and faith abounds in the gift of love, companionship and of who you are.

Lover’s Lament

October 16, 2012 / Tom

I need you to settle in next to me

Hold my hand

Put your head on my chest

Let your leg drape over mine

As you wipe these tears away.

Tell me it’s all right

That the numbness will end

That the cold shoulder isn’t cold at all

Just waiting for my warmth, my touch

As you bring your body close to me.

Show me that you love me

That you are true, that the rock on which I rest

Isn’t another figment of my imagination.

That you are real

And that you aren’t just another ghost being created by a lie.

Let me feel the sun again

Hear the church bells ring while the songbirds sing their tune.

Let me know some truth

In place of this loneliness, your love

In place of this fear, your steady gaze.

In ignorance the fumes of fear explode

In dismissal the eruption of sadness consumes

The Warrior succumbs to the battles of his mind

He cannot move from his stool

Or stand as the blows rain down upon him.

And so he loves…

Now, then, tomorrow.

And though he struggles alone against the tide

He will stand, eventually

And he will secure Love’s sweet victory.

The Leaf (Poem)

October 16, 2012 / Tom

I’ve done my job

And as the end slowly comes

I will do my job again

And fall lightly to my Home.

I’ve rustled through the breeze

And sang loudly through the winds of change.

I’ve given you shade

When you needed a break from the midday Sun.

You’ve given life to me,

So that I could give life to you, my Tree.

Now the seasons are changing

And it’s time for me to change as well.

I’ve grown old to you

Another spring I shall not know

In your embrace.

You once held me so that I knew I could touch the sky

You once lifted me up so that I could see it all

And held me firm when the storm clouds came.

But now you’re letting go

In your release I cry shades of red

Of yellow and hues somewhere in between.

Where we once held firm against the storm

Now the slightest breeze tears us further apart.

Where I once danced in the Sun

I now wilt and seek refuge.

Where I was once supple

I am now dry and brittle to the touch.

Yet I have done my job.

And I will continue to do my job

As I fall lightly to the Earth

To feed you once again.

Part of me in the decay will spawn another leaf

In another time

In your place, the place I loved to be.

And you will dance in the breeze, and sing a song

In A Moment of Complete Despair

October 11, 2012 / Tom

I can sit

And wait

For the call that is never coming.

You sit, and stare. You stare at the television, and watch shows you could never repeat the content of. You read chapters of a book, but couldn’t recite a single word on any of those pages. You laugh, but you are not sure at what. You so want to give in, to give up, and you utter a prayer to whatever God you know to make it all go away. You need her to call you, to tell you that it will be alright…I’m just angry right now…I love you.

But nothing. You…I…me…just sit and stare at the nothingness that is around you. The emptiness in your heart suggests that all of this is wrong, that what is right is her talking to you and laughing with you. The hand in yours, the arm around your neck, the eyes staring into you in ecstatic joy are all you want to know. You want the rest of it, the argument, the points, the protestations of something you don’t even care about to just fucking disappear.

Yet it won’t. It never will.

The darkness

Sheds me of the light

And now I just cry…empty and alone.

No, it never will. It will haunt you like few other demons have. Had it not all felt so perfect in those moments of love this moment would not be so absent of hope. You can hear her voice in the back of your mind and you just wish you could cry. Yet you can’t even muster another tear. The front you put on to the world suggests you are fine, but the reality is that you are dark and you are cold. Love is the most painful experience in your world when it no longer applies to your present, when it has left you cold and dangling from a ledge you have no certainty of escaping.

So you dangle, and you stare, and you wish it could all be different.

She seems happy. You can take some solace in that. She has not found the darkness and is not sharing in the cold. You find a smile creeping from your lips at the thought, she is fine and will be. You would bear this cross for her if just to know that your final gift to her was joy. It’s all you ever wanted to give her, and even when you failed you wanted to do so much more. If this, the joy she has in finally being rid of you, is the final gift you provide then the pain itself is worth it.

The phone rings

You jump, hoping…

But alas you sink in disappointment.

Hope falls to the floor like broken glass. Shards of it cut at your skin on their way down, and you bleed clear, salty blood from the little nicks. You feel the pins-and-needles of where those shards of hope have scarred you, and sink into the floor further than the Earth would ordinarily allow. Even the Earth gives way to your grief, and you are grateful for Her not resisting you in this, your moment of despair.

It will get better…it has to.

The voice reminds me

You’ve been here before

And look at the gift you got for surviving.

It is here, now, that you live your moment of despair. True, gone is the light that once gave you such beauty, but alive in you is the desire that fuels who you are. In this moment you are sucking the dust of a hundred lifetimes as she leaves your life, but you will, someday, use those arms that have picked you up before to again respond to the calling. You will feel the strength in your shoulders return. You will know your heart beat again. You will come to your knees and your legs will do their job.

No, those eyes will not grace yours again. Those hands will not grasp for you, wanting and needing you ever again. Those lips will not breathe life into your soul. She has made her choice and you now must make yours. You are love, you are strength, you are the man someone will embrace. Yours is a soul someone will not be able to envision ever living without. The lessons you have learned will make you smile, and once again you will laugh in the dance of Divinity. You will heal, and you will know what it is to feel again. So bask in this, your moment of despair, and remember it wisely.

Never forget this moment even as you seek to never relive it again.

The Final Breath

September 28, 2012 / Tom

♥

He laid there, the immense pain in his chest beginning to numb under the realization that he was dying. Just moments before he was alive, enjoying the morning with his beloved, laughing about the memories they had created the night before. Now, he was sprawled out on the living room floor fighting for air, and wanting so desperately to talk.

She was there, above him, her hands holding his face as they had a thousand times before. The worry in her eyes was clear as she begged him not to leave her. “I love you baby, please stay with me. We never have to be apart again, I promise. Stay with me, I love you so much. Please…please.”

He wanted to talk, but the words just would not come out. He wanted to remind her that he loved her too. He wanted to bring her back to the many moments they shared. As her blue eyes cried the rains of hell onto him, he wanted to bring her back to Heaven, the place that they shared when their bodies meshed and their minds fell into each other. He wanted so badly to comfort her as she tried to comfort him by touching him, kissing him, and reminding him that yes, he was all she ever needed. All he could do, however, was lay there. As the tears streamed down from the corner of his eyes he could only stare at her and beg whatever gods there were that this would not be the end.

His desperate struggle for air began to settle as his mind drifted back to the first time he saw her. It was a picture, and her eyes had enveloped his senses and drew his attention. He couldn’t explain the feeling, he only could utter something to himself that he would say to her a short time later: “beautiful”. She stole his attention to the point that despite loving the mountains he did not notice them behind her. All he could do was look at her face, those eyes and that smile. He felt he knew her once, although he couldn’t say when. He also felt he needed to know her again, although he couldn’t say why. So, he sent a simple message, and then came her reply.

He could remember the reply, the poetic way she stated her emotions of the moment. He could feel her presence despite never meeting her. In a brave and courageous moment this man had sent that woman a message and she had replied. He knew then that something was happening within him.

A sudden shift brought him back to his reality. “I’m going to get the phone to call 9-1-1. Baby, please hold on!”

“NO!” he wanted to scream. “Please stay here with me. I need you baby, hold my hand. Kiss me. I don’t have much time left. I have so much I need to say to you.”

She was gone, and although only a few feet it seemed like a million miles had separated them. They had begun their relationship hundreds of miles apart, and although they had settled into a routine he could remember the pain of being separated from her. So many days had to be spent missing her and wishing she was there with him. In the early days he had often doubted that this woman could love him. He had often doubted that she could stay true to him. He often caved to the frantic fear of his mind created long before he ever met her. Even at its worst when they ended for a short time, she came back to him proving that he mattered, and that he had value to someone. She loved him, he could see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch, and now as he heard it in her voice as she frantically begged the dispatcher to get there as fast as he could. As she screamed at the phone, he only wanted her voice to become sweet again like it was when she said “I love you” or “come to bed baby”.

“Please sweetheart, let me hear you sing” his mind whispered as his mouth remained silent. “Don’t cry, just whisper in my ear and laugh. God, let me here that laugh please. I have a joke here somewhere, please just laugh.”

He could almost hear her laugh. It made him tingle to hear it. Her eyes would light up and her mouth would curve “just so”. It was no wonder everyone loved her so much. It used to drive him crazy, and he often felt in the beginning like she liked them more than she liked him. She paid more attention to them, and he felt relegated to a dark corner of the room. He believed she gave them more of her than she gave him, but once he began to listen and to see the truth he realized what a fool he was. She gave him so much more of herself than she had given anyone else. She loved him, and offered to him parts of her he was sure no one else had ever seen. She even gave him what he asked for, and in the process showed him the truth. “What a fucking idiot I was” he said to himself. “I want my fucking life back, I want to love her like she deserved to be loved from the first time we met. Please God, give it back to me, I won’t waste a second…”

God’s answer was a gasp for air and an intense pain in his chest. He shook his head angrily at the reply, and then focused as he had learned on the beauty around him. He could feel his children in his arms again as they had been as babies. He could hear them say “I love you dada” and feel their little hands take his index finger as they struggled to walk. He could feel them cuddled next to him when they got older as he read their favorite book. He could remember the lectures to his son about sports, the diatribes to his daughters about boys, the millions of laughs and the relatively small numbers of tears. He loved to make them laugh, and he would often make himself the butt of his own jokes to get them laughing hysterically. As he looked into his woman’s eyes something must have told her, “please tell my babies I love them. Please don’t ever let them forget.”

“I won’t. But you’re not going anywhere. You will tell them yourself.”

“God I wish” was his heart’s reply. His children were the first people he ever felt pure love for. They taught him what it was to love and be loved, and the woman who now cradled him softly taught him how right he was. His children gave him value as a father, she taught him value as a lover, together they taught him value as a man. Even now as he spent his last moments in this existence she was here, showing him his value and the true meaning of love. It wasn’t in the nifty words he could string together. It wasn’t in the sex. It wasn’t in the outward show of affection. It was in the truth that made all of those things possible, but not necessary. They were necessary to the ego, the truth was necessary only to itself and it owed something only to itself. He had understood that early on, but it took him time to get over himself to actually use it. His past had once so cluttered his mind that it stole precious moments away from him and from them. Moments made even more precious by their imminent end.

He could feel the end coming. Within him became a mixture of peace and pain, of darkness and light. He realized this interesting parallel in the life we all lead. It seemed what we call death is just like what we call life, a mixture of suffering and joy. Even now, as he suffered intensely amid the final pathway to peace he couldn’t go there. Not yet. He wanted to spend one more moment with this woman who had changed his life and brought the sunshine where none existed. For that he would bear whatever pain that had to be borne. He suddenly became calm, and the pain seemed to subside. This, as it had been his entire life, was the power of Love.

He looked at her and felt healthy. His breathing seemed to return to normal, and the pain in his chest subsided. He shook his head slowly, although he was not sure at what. It felt like the first time they met, with a mixture of excitement and anticipation followed by realization and love. Then she laughed, oh God she laughed. Through the tears and sniffles she laughed. His head, now on her thighs as she stroked his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks, shook a bit with each burst of laughter. He was able to lift his arms long enough to wipe her hair from her face and stroke the contour of her jaw line one final time. Suddenly, he found his voice for one last poetic verse to his lover.

“Baby, I love you. Since the dawn of time I have loved you. It may be here, or it may be there, but somewhere I will be loving you. Please, know that it is you, and it always has been you. I am grateful for last night, and for every night I have had with you. I am also very grateful for this moment and that it was with you. I love you…I swear.”

As she bent to kiss him, he closed his eyes, grateful that the last vision he would have in this lifetime was of her, his lover, his friend, his guiding star. They kissed sweetly with a passion that had never left. With that, he inhaled deeply and headed toward peace.

♥