Separation

Companionship

Well, it's New Year's eve and I didn't break my neck, though I did climb a lot of rocks! The view this morning was pretty much like this one, so it was a good day to be alive and in the west.

Yesterday I climbed Bell Rock and took another extended walk, and also made some progress on my writing project, and I met two new people--both very special.

In fact, I've been thinking about companionship in many of its manifestations over the last several days. There is the family kind, when I got to visit my Mom and we helped each other get through Christmas without Amelia and without Dad. And I got to spend a lot of hours with a brother-in-law, visiting from Chile to tell a national Baha'i conference in Phoenix about the new House of Worship that's going to be built near Santiago. We've known each other since 1972 when we both arrived in Chile, two young guys fresh off the plane and about to witness the world explode. I had come out to Arizona to help him with his presentation and combined the trip with some work time for me by myself.

And there was the family from Illinois who visited one day in Sedona: eating, laughing, driving up a canyon road that just barely hung onto the side of the mountain; and these good friends, these special people, brightened everything for one whole day.

Then there is the accidental kind, like the lady who was waiting for a table in the restaurant yesterday and invited me to sit with her, since the place was jammed. Lee is about 45, pretty, and just starting another relationship after waiting six years to get her mental and emotional house cleaned following her departure from an abusive marriage. She took her two kids from Germany, where she had been an air force wife for a long time, and came out to Arizona to make a new life for herself--talk about courage! I asked her how she managed to keep from going prematurely into a new relationship, and she said that she just was very careful to avoid places where there might be people looking to link up with her. Of course, the fact that several of her friends tried to set her up with a succession of fixer-upper mates helped a lot; my favorite was the guy under indictment on drug and racketeering charges--"He's a great guy, Lee, and this will all blow over and then he'll need someone like you." Can you imagine?

Lee spoke of another friend who had done "a good job" with his grief after losing his wife: he had studied about the process, gotten counseling along the way, including using the advisor as kind of a mentor as he began thinking about committing to someone new, and he did some of the things he'd always wanted to do. He tried some new things and some old ones to figure out who he was now, relied a lot on his friends, and fashioned a new life for himself, now several years into a second and very strong marriage.

More than the specific thoughts she shared, though, was the living example of someone who has made it through (though a longer tunnel than I hope for in my own case!), and who was full of encouragement for me in my own process. And that was true at the massage parlor, too!

OK, I should explain. In October I started using a gift certificate for massages that my sister and nephews had given me. When you've been tensing every muscle, waiting for four years for the axe to drop, you get pretty tight, you know? So, the sessions had helped in all kinds of ways, and since I'd been pushing my tired old muscles up one rock and down another, with several fairly vehement complaints along the way, it seemed a good idea out here, too. So I went.

Prezado has a great touch, with really strong fingers that found every knot and worked it loose. But she also found other things, as for example when she started kneading a calf muscle and asked me, "Did you lose your wife recently?" We spoke almost as old friends from then on, and we parted friends, I much the richer for her compassion and practical assistance with the results of so many months of tests.

And finally, there's the virtual kind. As I sat this morning on the top of whatever the rock was called, three or four hundred feet above the green trees and red rocks, I talked with Amelia and was comforted. We talked about how much she had liked the beginning of the trail to this rock, which was all she had had strength for when we tried it last summer; how much she would have appreciated the view and the crisp, cold air; how much I wished we could be there together and hold hands as we looked out over the world, trying to find landmarks we recognized and to figure out what is that infernal hammering, anyway!; and we talked about the questions, doubts and early thoughts I've been having as I tramped the woods.

I told her about the people I was meeting, and what I thought she might think of them. I asked her advice about work. I talked about the trip next month to Israel. We had a nice chat.

Chances Are the Good News

...and the bad news, too. Like this morning: I have another chance to climb a 400 ft. red sandstone rock called "Sugar Loaf" (that's me last summer at the top; nice hat, eh?), here in Sedona. I also have a chance to break my middle-aged neck coming back down. Two sides of the same coin.

I've been thinking about chances and choices quite a bit these last several days. My youngest boy, Husayn, lent me a book called No More Prisons, and in it the author, a young rabble rouser if ever there was one, quotes a friend, a girl who had had a brush with cancer, as saying "You only get one life. If there's something you want to do and you're not doing it, you don't get another chance."

Yes and no, I think. It's true that you only go through this life once, hence the value of making the time count. But I actually do have another chance, and it scares the hell out of me. When Amelia was ill, there was a lot I couldn't do: travel, spend more than an hour away from the house (although we worked some things out that took longer), at least not without feeling guilty. We talked about this a lot, and we both agonized over it, it was so hard to make those decisions.

Now, however, my time is my own, subject to the constraints of needing to eat, sleep, work to pay for eating and sleeping, etc. And from where I stand, just past the half-century mark, there are all kinds of things that are, at least potentially, open to me that I never thought would be again. I thought she and I would grow old together, that our lives would evolve naturally from the patterns and choices we had already made, and the necessities we had already come to grips with. Not now: I'll be living in a new place with new furniture and closets with just my things in them; my time will be structured differently, without a four-hour piece missing that I used for the commute--how will I use that time?

And then there are the very scary things: I thought I would never be with another woman in my life, but am now back at square one, wondering, always wondering what's in store for me, or for an "us" if there is one. Do I really want to stay in the same job, as remarkable as it occasionally is? Is this the time to jump out of airplanes or live in Africa in an AIDS clinic or move to DC and lobby like hell for pancreatic cancer research or move overseas someplace less tragic and devastated or risk my life fighting against corruption in government or...or...? Such an odd mixture of freedom and fear: will I have what it takes to break all the old moulds and build something new, something worthy, maybe even something a little wonderful? Some of the old building materials will still work, and that's not a cop-out (dating myself there, no?); maybe there will be some new ones, better ones...or worse ones.

That's the finally scary part: what if, having all these chances, I make the wrong ones? Because having been given this precious gift, and some of the knowledge that came with it, there's still a chance at blowing it.

Keep on moving!

It has been a busy time, these last several days, hardly a moment to stop and think! Just as Amelia was walking on in this picture (doesn't she look tiny?), the pace of work and service is moving me along, too.

And that's a good thing. As our oldest son pointed out in an email about an earlier post, we have to know that Amelia is learning about her new existence, finding out answers to all the questions she always had in this life but for which there were no answers, and learning the ways of the new world into which she was born, now almost three of our months ago. I, for one, think that she has been given tasks to do, looking after people here, and that she is also finding time to walk--or work--in the gardens she was sure were a big part of that next world. If she is doing all those things, then it's likely she is expecting us to get along with important things here, too!

In fact, this morning I think I got a little gift from her, gently nudging me along. I am in Arizona at a Baha'i conference, and on Sunday go back to Sedona for a few days. The hope is to rest, read, and work on a writing project for my "employer," the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the US. The project is going to take a lot of new thought; I hope that walking those beautiful canyons will bring new ideas and make the project more useful to the Assembly.

Anyway, I was debating with myself about renting a car that would let me explore some of the gravel roads out there, but was leery of the expense. Arriving at the car rental counter, they said there was a small problem with my reservation and, instead of the class of car I had reserved, they were going to have to give me whatever was available....a brand new white SUV (a small one, for any eco-followers!). There was just this wonderful, sweet sense that Amelia had been helping things along, looking after me and providing a little treat to make the work go easier. I looked up for a second and told her "thank you."

This three-month anniversary of her passing, on December 30th, is supposed to be hard. One hopes it won't be, and is grateful for useful work to do that helps get past this and other such milestones; and it is nice to feel that Amelia still cares, still has some love to share with those she left behind.

Lessons in the Sunrise

Yesterday was an eventful day. Almost got stung by a scorpion, one of the little, deadly ones. Passed a big test. Took a long walk in the mountains as the sun set in the west (where I got four calls from South America--imagine, lost in the mountains and someone way down in the south of Chile can reach you and ask how to burn a CD on their computer!).

But it was what happened the day before, and the night before, and at the hour of dawn that was important.

We had gone to a local art museum and the guide/guard was a very lovely young woman who, during the course of our tour, was sending all kinds of signals that she was interested. I know, it sounds unbelievable, and it was to me, too. It was like hearing someone speak a new and unfamiliar language: you think you can pick out a few words but can't quite get the sense of it. Inevitable, I guess: my life has changed forever, and will bring lots of new, sometimes disturbing things.

So it was now: this simple encounter set off a firestorm of emotions, feelings, thoughts. During the long, restless night that followed I was by turns guilty, angry, confused, deeply saddened and wounded afresh. What was my purpose now? Was there, could there be, out there somewhere in the wide world, someone who could fill this great wound in my soul and help me to feel whole again? At dawn I left my useless bed, dressed and went outside. Feeling exhausted, low and desperate, I sat on a bench overlooking a dry riverbed, facing east, and wept for a long time. I wept for myself, and for my sweet Amelia, for the ruins of all our hopes and plans for our last years together. As the dawn freshened and the sun rose higher over the mountains my spirits sank lower and lower.

And then something wonderful happened. The night before I had read in a little pamphlet about grief that "their pain is now your pain," and I understood this profoundly. As I remembered Amelia's great patience through all the months of treatment and hard work, though, I began to tell myself that if her pain could be mine, so too could be her patience. I said it out loud, a student finally grasping the lesson: "Patience. Patience."

I looked out again at the mountains, the long-suffering cactus, all the rocks and plants of this desert place, and I saw that they, too, were patient: come storm, come lightning, come the depredations of man and all the other creatures that walk or fly, or come the slow, timeless wash of erosion, they were always there, calm, and patient with their destiny. That was the quality of the patience I needed now, in order to ride out this stage of life and give God's plan time to work itself out.

The simple realization of this truth lightened my spirit; my prayers of desperation had been answered, and I could watch, less troubled now, as the clouds before me turned from brilliant orange and red and purple to a paler shade of gold. And that was when the second lesson came from the sunrise.

Because I stood and turned around and looked into the west. Whereas the eastern sky had a few bright puffs and shining rows of clouds, edged in white light, the west was filled from apex to horizon with row after row of glorious, illumined waves of clouds, still orange and red and, down low on the edge of the sky, a shade of purple suffused with delicate pink that is impossible to describe.

The full glory of the sunrise was there, but reflected, and so I was given to understand two important things: first, that had I concentrated on my small concerns, looking only at them and not turning to look at the vast circle of earth and sky, I would have missed this fuller expression of the larger creation of which my burden is simply a tiny part. And second, that while the light comes from a single source in the east, sometimes there is a special glory in its reflection at the other side of the sky: God's will is one, but as it is reflected in life and action it can become a thing of wonder, less lofty perhaps, less bright and sharp-edged, but for all of that more tender, more welcoming and full of all the delicate shadings that change and chance can bring in this world below.

The End in the Beginning

I was thinking last night about the first time I saw Amelia, not as merely a friend, but as someone to share my life with. We had known each other for nearly a year: a year of work for the Baha'i Faith, civil unrest in Chile, risks gladly taken and shortages of even basic foodstuffs gladly accepted. She and I had spent many hours together, all "task-related", and we had gotten to know each other on that level.

But all that changed, abruptly, one afternoon. We were at the Baha'i National Center in Santiago, I for one set of meetings and she for another. The place was full; having just arrived, I was turning to go up the stairs to put away my traveling bag, when she came around the bend in the staircase on her way down.

I hope I never forget that moment, how she looked: long dark hair, falling to shoulders wrapped in the black fur collar of a red coat, her hair shot through with rays of late-afternoon sun making even the lustrous fur look dull in comparison. Her carriage was graceful, elegant and fine, and her smile chased away any last lingering shadows from every corner of the room. The cliche about the heart stopping wasn't true here, but my breath did catch in my throat as I beheld something infinitely more wonderful and beautiful than I had ever imagined, than the friend I thought I knew. Here was an exquisite woman, feminine and yet full of quiet strength, and I knew the hope, with a force almost physically overwhelming, that one day she would agree to join her life with mine, that together we could build something wonderful.

We both worked toward that goal, tentatively, with care: she because she had been wounded in the past and because all the men in her life had treated her so badly; I because I couldn't imagine how we would ever transcend what I thought was the inevitable boredom and routine of married life, and because of what seemed like the great risk of choosing one from among all the women I might ever meet. We did things together, but always in groups. Once though, I recall, we traveled to the far north for a conference, and after classes would meet in the cabin she shared with three other girls, to read from the Baha'i Writings together, far into the night. One of those nights, as I rested my head on my arms, exhausted from a long day, a small, timid hand rested, like some frightful bird, on my neck--our first touch. Then, when the conference was over, we sat next to each other on the all-night bus ride, her young son fast asleep between us, and talked about things great and small, or of nothing at all, as the dark miles rushed by.

The months passed; we exchanged letters while civil war loomed over a troubled country. Then the axe fell and, confined in our houses at almost opposite ends of the country by a military curfew, we listened to the sounds of gunfire and bombs and death in the night, and hoped the other would be spared, that we could meet again.

Well, we did, but that's a story for another time, perhaps. I was thinking about all this as I remembered her touch, our gingerly approach to love, and her great, radiant beauty, gone but for the eyes in this picture, eyes that could still share happiness and love. My first intuition, that with this woman I could become--we could become together--something much greater than ourselves alone, proved to be abundantly true. No logic was involved, nor did I idealize her; I just knew it, and to my great joy she said yes when I asked her.

Back To Another Time

In April 2003 we visited my folks in Tucson. Amelia always liked flowers and the funny shapes of the cacti. She wanted a picture of the two of these beings posing together, their arms stretched to the sky. Looking at her there, so happy and vibrant, it's hard to imagine that just month later the docs would say there was nothing more they could do, and that a scant 6 months later she would be gone.

I am heading back to this very place tomorrow. I'll say hello to her favorite cactus; they live a long time, I'm sure it's still there. Maybe there will be a little pixie hiding in its shadow.

Note to spouses and lovers everywhere: take a moment to make your partner feel special. Tell them they have strength and courage beyond anything they find in themselves. The last thing every night, whisper to them how wonderful they are, how bravely they faced the day's challenges, how many admirable things they did for others, how much you look forward to seeing them in the morning. Hold them and tell them you thank God every day for having sent them to you, to brighten your days and cheer the long nights.

Do it for them, and do it for yourself, to sweeten your own days. Because this kind of gift, which knows no special holiday, blesses both giver and receiver. Because when you can't see them, hold them, smell their special fragrance, you will know how blessed you were to have had the chance to make them happy.

The Revenant Revisited

This is a curious little picture. It was taken in the house that inspired many of Andy Wyeth's most famous paintings, including "Christina's World." As you move through the rooms in this seaside Maine farmhouse, they have placed prints of his works in the places where he was standing when the ideas for the pictures came to him. You see what he saw, albeit updated for the passage of 40-50 years.

One of his works that always kind of intrigued me is called "The Revenant." It's not especially well known but it's haunting in its own way. It shows him dressed all in white clothes, the kind you wear for a day on the water. He's in misty outline, in an old, dusty mirror, with cobweb-like curtains behind him blowing in the breeze of an open window. Wyeth wrote that he had come to see Christina one sunny summer afternoon in 1949 and, coming around a turn in the second-floor hallway, had been startled to see a figure moving in the room just to his right. It took him a moment to get his bearings, and to realize that the dimly seen man was, in fact, himself, reflected in the surface of the old mirror. He said he had glimpsed how he imagined he might look if he were to come back from the dead: a misty, breeze-blown, insubstantial and transparent reflection of his former self. "Revenant" means one who has returned from a long absence, or after death.

As a younger man I had admired Wyeth's work, and during one rambling summer when I was giddy with my first car, I stumbled across this house. When Amelia and I traveled to Maine in October 2002 we chanced to find our way back here, and on the very last day of the house museum's season.

We tramped the house, all three stories of it, and enjoyed the sense of times past the house so strongly radiates. There's even a little indoor privy, with two seat-holes for adults and, off to one side and just 8 inches or so off the floor, a little tiny child's seat.

And when we came together in this upstairs corner room, I sneaked up on Amelia and snapped her picture. I'm behind the camera and in the mirror, too, while you see her real self, smiling at me, and her reflection from behind, also in the mirror. A very complicated scene, indeed, and maybe a little prophetic. I remember that beneath the fun there was a little shiver; would our time there, preserved in this picture, prove to be an omen of future time? After three years of living with her illness, it was hard to escape such thoughts, no matter how brightly the sun was shining outside.

Maybe this picture is really all a symbol: of the things we think are permanent but aren't; of moments gone that can still be seen, still be experienced; of our being in two worlds at once, one with shape, weight, substance, and the other as fleeting as rays of light dancing off the glass; of love and time and memory, all so real and yet so luminous and faint even in the living of them.

Of Time and Memory

On the left, Amelia as she appeared a few years ago; on the right, at her last birthday, about 90 days before she took her flight. See what time and suffering can do. And that right-hand picture is before she became as she was for the last month of this life: yellow, exhausted, maybe 55 pounds, or less than half what she weighed in the first picture.

And so we who love her had to accompany her as she wasted away almost to nothing. How do you deal with that? How can anyone stand it, or be asked, destined, forced to stand it?

One way, perhaps, is to remember. Remember, for instance, that even in that last stage, when she was little more than eyes and a smile, her spirit was still there: indomitable, caring, eager to be welcomed home by her departed loved ones and her God. Remember, too, how much care she took to make peace before she left, to prepare us for living without being able to see her among us.

But time is still hard. Time is the years of waiting for the bad news to come, of looking ahead through the dark nights while she slept, and wondering what that future time might hold. The work of caring for her as her world became smaller and her stength less. The time, now, of every new day, seeking solace, purpose, new identity. Who am I now, as I become again, as I was before our lives were joined, one more lone pilgrim moving along the path of time?

Regrets & Forgiveness

This was taken at the wedding of a friend's son, I think it was in the Spring of 2003. The image...well, you can see for yourself what the image says.

I'm finding myself grateful to my friend Lacey for having told me about weblogs, and that when I have odd moments, like now, it's hard not to sit down and write what's been going through my mind all day. Before this, the thoughts, doubts and feelings would just swim around in my head; there was nothing really to do with them. And keeping a journal, while probably helpful, doesn't let you link words with pictures, which is so much more substantial. So, even though this journal is a lot like that lone firefly that flickers over the summer grass in your back yard, and maybe even though it's a pure, modern form of self-indulgence, well, here goes anyway.

Because I woke up today thinking about regrets, and the process of forgiving oneself. (I also woke up with that image from the Grand Canyon in my mind, but that was then; it's late on a cold afternoon and the spirit is at a lower ebb.)

You see, I do have regrets about the way I acted during the first, really, two-thirds of our marriage with Amelia. Sometimes in the wee, dark hours of the night those regrets swirl around in a mind that cannot rest.

For instance, I regret my self-absorption (like now, maybe?). I was much too busy thinking about myself and my needs to think about Amelia's. For nearly fifteen years, she would wait for me at the train station and give me a ride home. This, despite that she had had a long day at work or, later, that she had had chemo; and it didn't matter if it was cold, or rainy, or ice everywhere--there she was.

But there were times when she couldn't make it, and then I would get angry. Sometimes I'd seethe in silence, sometimes I'd scold her, and sometimes I'd walk home feeling the victim. Cold, wet days were especially good for this. Looking back, I can't believe that I ever did that, or thought it was somehow acceptable behavior.

And she was depressed. Much of it had to do with her family which, to borrow a friend's phrase, 'put the "fun" in "dysfunctional."' But some of it was me, too. Still, I held her depression against her in all kinds of subtle and overt ways. I began thinking there had to be a better way to live, and I began to think about getting out. Through it all, she held on; because I guess she understood things about life and love that I'm only beginning to glimpse. You can see that in the picture, these qualities sharpened through her suffering and the effort at enduring the impossible.

How grateful I am, then, that even before her illness we had begun repairing and strengthening our marriage. Grateful, too, for the insights that came during her illness, so that I could try to make amends. Amelia would fret about how much time I spent cooking and cleaning the kitchen, but it gave me such happiness when she agreed that she had had her turn in the kitchen and it was OK for her to rest now. Or when I told her it was all right if she didn't come to get me at the train anymore. "Are you sure," she asked? "Absolutely," I said. "You did it for too many years, and I took it too much for granted, and I understand now that you don't need to do that anymore. I'm so grateful that you helped me that way, but now I want to walk myself." "What about if it's cold or rainy?" "I'll bundle up; it'll be OK." "OK, since you're OK with it, I've really been feeling too tired to do it and like I need the rest; so if you're sure..." "Please, Amelia, I'm sure. I'm just sorry it took me so long to figure this out."

She forgave me all that, and I know it because she cried, sometimes, when I hugged her, because she knew after she died that we would be apart. Now, I have to forgive myself. I guess I'll be able to: not 'letting myself' off the hook, but recognizing that I did the best I could at the time; and thanking the good Lord for giving me, us, the chance to see things differently, the awareness to be able to talk about it and reach some conclusion, and for the chance to make amends to my dear little girl.

Metaphor

There I am, perched on an outcropping on the edge of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim. Sometimes I ask people to take pictures of me in a scene so that, when things get hectic and I need to get away, I can go back to that place in my mind. This is one of those, courtesy of my son, Husayn. We had gone there together after Amelia’s funeral, to try to get some rest, a respite from the grief and exhaustion.

But as I look at the picture again, I see how it works as a metaphor for everyone who has lost a loved one, and everyone who is thinking about taking a new path through life. Jo Ann’s post was about this, and I’m thinking, too, of a young woman friend, a sweet, smart, beautiful woman of 30+ who, to the bemusement of many—including herself—is still single; and I’m thinking of another dear woman, twice unlucky in marriage but now almost ready, perhaps, to move on once more.

You can see in the picture a ravishing panorama of rocks, trees and mountains, fading into blue at the distant horizon. But look more closely. What you can’t see is that the drop at my feet is more than a thousand feet, broken only by huge rocks that have already made the trip down and ledges that remain after the fury of the water that carved the canyon had passed through and subsided.

It’s both exhilarating and frightening to find oneself on the edge of that drop. The scene is beautiful, full of promise and delight, equally full of risk and danger—the slightest breeze, if it catches you off balance, might toss you effortlessly over the edge. The wind that day was fresh and crisp, the sun warm, not unlike the “good” days, when one feels that a future of endless possibility stretches out before one’s feet. If we take that first step past the edge, will we be sucked down to ruin? Or, like those Tibetan monks, will we discover that we can almost fly, jumping miles at a time through the suddenly sustaining air?

The scene out there has high and low points, peaks and valleys, pathways that we can’t see from our lofty perch but that we know are there, threading their way between rock and river. If we start the journey, no doubt we will find some of them. None of them is straight. We have to find our way one step at a time, even if we do have some larger sense of the direction we must go; indeed, looking up toward the sun helps us keep to our course, however much the paths and the detours seem to take us off track. Some paths will lead us onward, others into dead-end canyons, still others to the brink of the fast-flowing river we will have to cross before reaching our resting-place. But try them we must; we can’t ever go back, only forward.

For all its peacefulness, this is a hard place, one that was carved by the rage of rivers, the grinding of sand and the slow crumbling of resistance to forces too great to withstand. When the breeze subsides, if you listen very carefully, you can just hear the river down there on the canyon floor: an echo of ancient upheaval, always there, never still, always working away but slowly now. We never entirely lose the memory of tragedy, of devastation, of desolation and the calamitous pull of forces we neither understand nor control—love, anger, confusion, despair, hope; but out of even a terrible past we can still feel serenity and peace, still look out with hope.

And beyond it all is that luminous, hazy horizon. Unknown land it is, but it looks so wonderful and calm. You have to cross a vast gulf of time and space, at the end perhaps climb, perhaps fly up that distant, shadowy, daunting wall; and then, you arrive and the light surrounds you once more.