Love and Death
Recollection and reflection
Easter Sunday last year, I woke to a vision.
Not prone to visions, I knew at once what it was as it came, perfect and fully formed behind my eyes.
I sat next to you as you lay dying in an aching, far-future moment. I held your hand as we said goodbye in this life and my soul cried for the loss.
It was not the vision that taught me what I know to be undeniable. It was the weight of all that came before.
We had lived together in love for at least 30 years, having come together for the millionth time. In this incarnation, some thirty years into my life and as long before you left.
We loved as family born of ancient waters, from time before man. We had said goodbye a million times. It always hurt like this.
I am for you as you are for me. In that moment, the sorrow of the loss of you was reborn in me, real and whole, heavy and proud. It lives there now, not as something that will be, but something that simply is.
As the lack of light that is the dark, the sorrow stands to show me the love in stark relief.
Love and death. Inextricable. Integral. To know one is to see the other.
Later that morning, we lay in the grass and talked of ancient lessons. You asked me when I last cried. I answered, just this morning.
I never told you why.
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