Loss: To Feel or Not To Feel

               

     My memories come as isolated snapshots now, a kaleidoscope of colorful fragments that somehow add up to a MAN I once called MINE. I accept the loss in stages, quietly closing one door and moving on to the next. Healing is a process, gradual and slow.
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     How do I keep this from being a life long lesson? How do I keep it an isolated incident something so over aching, so devastating, so pervasive in my life still? How do I keep from being crippled by it? The answer, I believe... If there is such a thing as a concise answer to such questions is to slowly learn to live with the loss and not under it, to let it become a companion rather that a guide. I won't say this is easy; I know how hard it can be. But I also know it can be done, and I know the comfort that comes from hearing how other coped with similar challenges and fears. It'a like a loud sound in an empty house, it echoes on and on. The sounds of silence left to echo without response, become more haunting than the actual words. 

     This time, though the pain refused to stay underground. As the initial shock of separation wore off, I began to cry with a ferocity that, quiet literally, one night brought me to my knees. It didn't matter that I was the one who walked away; I still felt abandoned and completely alone. 

     It hurts me more than I can express to hear he's still hurt. He asked me, "How are you?". After a pause, I said I'm doing fine. I asks how he's been, and he says "Fine". Another pause, and then we say goodbye. 

     I remember what he gave, what he made, what he did. What we were to each other, what he taught me, what I learned at him. That he made things, that he made words, that he fed me with so much love. Where he had dreamed of going, what our first words were and how he had quarreled with me. 

     I am fooling myself when I say he exists now only in the photograph or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. He lives on beneath everything I do. His presence influenced who I was, and his absence influence who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide. Loss is our legacy.