Separation

Off

The young daughter of a friend is going in the same group of pilgrims as I am. On the phone the other night she, excited by the prospect of her first visit to the Bahá'í Holy Places, breathlessly asked me, "Are you excited, too?"

"No."

The poor thing: the blunt answer dimmed her spirits a little, and I felt badly for her. I told her I was excited for her, because going to those Places is an immense thing and she does well to be excited.

For me, it's such a different story. This was the trip Amelia and I were to take together; now I go alone, at least in the visible realm of things. And I have some serious work to do. After all, God took my wife four months ago yesterday; I want to talk to Him about that. He scattered the pieces of my life's puzzle; I want to ask Him what comes next, how He intends to put them back together, and how much of the work He expects me to do. I'm alone, the days so bleak and the lonely nights so long; who does He have in mind for me? What's the best use to which I must put this next phase of life, and will He allow me to dedicate it to Him? And what does that mean, anyway: not in general terms, but in detail? So many questions, of the One who always answered both the spoken and unspoken need.

No, I'm not excited. It's more complex than that. And as the bags are packed and the car leaves, I'll be asking Him not to be silent or coy or subtle--I yearn for clear guidance, not mere suggestions.

As I look at this picture, though, of the little cherub holding a finger to his lips--a picture Amelia took in 1999 on what was to become her last visit as a living soul in this world--I realize maybe he's not saying what I always thought he was. Every other time I have walked past these urns, it seemed to me the cherubs were saying, "Hush, this is sacred ground; walk quietly." Now I think they must be saying, "Listen; stop talking and questioning and worrying, and let the Beloved speak. Listen for Him to call your name, and all will be well."

I'm off.

In Touch with Reality

I'm working on a new theory. Before any books get written, I'll have to research it to make sure it's not something everyone else has noted--firm grasp of the obvious, etc. But the theory is this:

One of the hardest things about being alone is the lack of touching. You never know how often during a day you touch your partner until you don't get to do it any more. It's one of those things it's easy to take for granted. Amelia and I used to hold hands, quite a lot actually, though when we were alone. If we were going someplace in the car I would reach out for her hand--easy when she was sitting in the front seat, more difficult after she began to have to recline in the back because of the pain and fatigue. We didn't hold hands while I drove, we would just touch, lightly, for a moment, just kind of, you know, checking in with each other. That touch was so sweet, so fleeting, it was like having a bird or a butterfly light for a moment before continuing its journey. Or she would put a hand around the back of my neck, or rub a shoulder, and the touch would fill me with strength, energy, a fresh measure of love.

And so the years went by and every day, we'd touch. Maybe we would be having a meal and a matter of concern would come up, or we would be talking about being together, and she would lay her hand on my cheek; or she would go through a doorway and I'd get to touch the small of her back as she passed. There were the hugs in the mornings and at night, and all those little times in between when one of us would pass a hand along an arm, a shoulder, a hip as we went about our daily business. And those other, more special occasions: looking out over the ocean or the Grand Canyon, walking on the beach--and our hands would find each other, we would communicate this way and share wordlessly the wonder we each felt. When you hold the hand of the one you love, you feel there's nothing you can't do.

But there is still something more. It's about space, the space we maintain around ourselves. Every culture has this dynamic, a greater or lesser amount of personal space into which people may only enter with permission. Entering the personal space of another is about love or war, it's not neutral: among those who are not intimate, it can be pressure and aggression, but among lovers it's about being one, together. The picture above is of two people who had agreed to allow each other to enter their space, who had become comfortable together, who reveled in each other's nearness. No other person could get so close, although children were almost on a par; but between us, it was unique, tender, fortifying and reassuring.

Because when there is someone whom you allow to enter your space in this way, you are not alone. And so in its lack, I think I've found a meaning: touching that special person, and being touched by them, roots you to the earth, to reality, and makes you whole. In my days now, people pass by, we have conversations and do things together, we even hug; but they are over there and I'm over here, with two layers of space between us. We have to use words, such a poor substitute for the deeper meanings in a touch that says "You are special. Out of all the people in the world, only we two touch this way, share this space."

Sometimes I wonder if I won't spin off the earth; some days I'm just holding on by my fingernails.

See the Tiny Sailboat

One sparkling autumn morning Amelia and I stood on the top of Mount Battie, just north of Camden, in Maine. Looking southeast, down to the water, we saw a single sail, a small boat setting out from the land, leaving the seacoast's cozy, rich and familiar colors for the vast sunlit ocean.

That's not unlike the voyage we take, when our lives have been changed in some important way. Some of those who have favored this journal with their comments and encouragement are beginning their lives as parents; others have experienced their own losses; some have hit sudden squalls and hidden reefs, and though they list a little, they're still sailing; and others are just leaving harbor, their gaze directed toward a bright horizon.

What we all have in common is that we don't know what we'll encounter, out there on the waves. But there are some things we can guess about. It's colder out there than on the land, for one, at least in the northern waters. Even in the dog days of July you need a jacket on the water. So when the comfort of the familiar is left behind, even the air is different. The waves are higher, too, as they roll in from the blue distances to the East. Some are from distant storms, so far away we never see them, only feel their effects. Some are from other boats that cross our path: usually only minor bobbles, sometimes enough almost to capsize us. And when the wind takes the sail, the boat heels over and picks up speed, an alarming feeling the first time. That's the way the old fishermen would rush out to the banks, or in to market--heeling the boat over so far that one railing would be completely under the water, as they sailed hell-bent for riches or ruin. The currents and channels, the winds and waves all seem random, but they are not: they obey deep, mysterious forces we cannot see--the turning of the earth, the flow of magnetic energy, the rise and fall of the temperature on the other side of the ocean, the hidden movement of the ocean floor. It takes faith to set out on the ocean: the sea is as powerful as it is beautiful, at once terrible and entrancing, and our little boats are as nothing to its great strength.

Just some thoughts on a cold January morning. waiting for the ice in the harbor to thaw so we can make for the open sea.

Thinking about Israel

The Stairs on Mount Carmel
Haifa, Israel

On Saturday, God willing, I'll leave for Pilgrimage to the Bahá'í Holy Places in Israel. It's a long trip; it was to have been Amelia's trip. I'm doing it, in part, for her, and I'm also hoping to find guidance there, and consolation, and a healing of the spirit. I want to ask God so many things, but I really want to listen, and I hope that, in His mercy, He will speak to all the questions, asked and unasked alike.

And I was thinking: We Bahá'ís take for granted that our Houses of Worship and Holy Places are open to all, that all are welcome and that every voice raised to God is valuable. But even that, in this strange and holy land, is not a given.

In 1999, Amelia, Husayn and I spent a couple of days in Jerusalem. While we were there we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock, two very sacred and special places. In the first, visitors go through the gates, the keys of which are in the care of a Muslim family because the Christians bickered so much among themselves that the Moorish captain in charge of the city handed the keys to one of his people and said the man's family were thenceforward the caretakers of the door. Then the visitors climb a steep staircase on their right and, arriving on the second floor, turn first left, along a dimly lit passageway, and then left again to face the ornate site Constantine's mother decided was the place where the three crosses were rooted into the top of Golgotha. In our case, as we came into that space and turned around to look at the wealth of richly detailed decoration that has accumulated over the last 1700 years, we jumped in surprise. There, sitting silent and forbidding, was a priest, dressed all in black and fading into the dark shadows all around him. His chin rested near the top of a walking stick, over which were laid his hands. A strong beaked nose protruded into the dim light, and on either side burned two dark eyes, staring fixedly out at the throng of visitors. The man's face was stern, even hostile, yet there was no clue as to his thoughts or whether he even saw us. He never spoke, never moved--a brooding presence that made us feel unwanted and unwelcome.

Then, later that day or perhaps it was the next, we went to the Temple Mount, as the Jews call it, or the Sacred Precinct, as some Muslims call it. After visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most sacred place to Muslims, we went into that remarkable monument to man's imagination, the Dome of the Rock. This place has always been one of my favorite ones, since I was a small child. The blue tiles, the fantastic array of calligraphy that covers the walls, and the golden dome all enchanted me from my earliest days. This was my third time there, but the first for Amelia and Husayn.

We entered through the ancient wooden doors, tall and wide and imposing, and came into the hushed silence of the room. Thick carpets cover almost every inch of the marble floors, muffling the sounds of those inside as they sit and pray, or meditate, or chat quietly with friends and family. Overhead the mosaic dome sparkles with gold, deep reds and blues, and tiny brilliant chips of light, the view changing as you move around the circular space. The rock itself occupies the center of this large space, encased in a railing and a more modern plastic screen. If you turn to your right, at about the six o'clock spot on the circumference of the rock, you will find a set of stairs that goes down, underneath the rock to a small grotto where people go to pray in the quiet, as they touch the rock which tradition says was touched by Abraham and Muhammad.

The whole experience is quite overwhelming: the heavy silence, the extraordinary artistry and devotion caught in stone and precious materials, and over all the weight of history. It is a place where it is natural to pray, and so there in the grotto I closed my eyes and began to offer thanks to God for the privilege of being in this place, and with my loved ones.

No sooner had I done this, however, than there were sounds of indignation and anger from the women around me in the small room. Opening my eyes I could see their anger: how dare I, an infidel, desecrate their place with my heathen delusions. With face and gesture and narrowed eyes they gave me to understand that I must not kneel, must not pray, must not stay there any longer.

How refreshing, then, to think of the House of Worship in Wilmette, with its airy tracery of light and stone? Of the doors open all the time, to everyone, where the only request is that reverent silence be observed. Or of the Holy Places, even the Tomb of Bahá'u'lláh, which Bahá'ís believe to be the most sacred Spot on earth--open to visitors and tourists, to newlyweds who love the abundance and color of the gardens, and overall the sweet scents of rose and jasmin, the music of rushing water, the calm breathing of the wind in the cypress trees, the cooing of the doves and pigeons that delight to come there?

I'm going to keep my eyes open, for unusual things happen in those Places: a swirl of a remembered skirt, perhaps, just glimpsed out of the corner of the eye? A flash of warm brown eyes, of that beautiful smile, of that shining dark hair? Will I hear her sweet voice in the water, I wonder, or feel her hand on my shoulder as I bow my head at the Sacred Threshold? Will I learn the answers to all the questions that swirl in my heart, some that I don't even know how to ask? Might the future become clear? What awaits me there?

Later the Same Day: Small Victories

So, at 1: 35 pm, here's how things stand:

--I called my schizophrenic brother-in-law in Chile and had a good conversation--a commitment I made to Amelia and that I'm trying my best to honor;

--Tried to call the friend in Chile who's looking after the BIL (see above), but no answer--same reason;

--The dark clothes are clean and folded, and the whites are in the dryer;

--I cooked a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch, with tofu cheddar cheese (I know, I know), lettuce and my own guacamole;

--The house is vacuumed and dusted, this latter being the first time I've done it since September (and don't bring any white gloves around, it's only the parts that show, but that's something at least);

--Two loads of accumulated stuff have been moved from the living room, where they had been putting down roots, to the basement, where the root putting down will continue until the summer and the move;

--The north half of the bathroom is sparkling clean and not a germ to be found.

Now I have to lie down. As a reward I'll go to Starbucks later, listen to music, read about I don't know what yet, and get a caffeine and sugar refill. Are these the inner resources one hears so much about? You can almost feel them growing.......

Small victories, but I'll take 'em!

Ramblings

It's been a busy week, nothing to post for six days; or at least nothing for public consumption.

I guess the issues of the week have all been, at their root, about endurance: enduring the slow passage of time while the many pieces of a life, scattered last September, can be put back together. The pattern will be new, but it's hard to see what it will look like right now. There's a kind of majesty in the slowness with which the pace goes forward, not unlike the clouds and the hills in this picture of the Vermillion Cliffs just north of the Grand Canyon.

A few random bits of the week:

--My therapist was encouraging. He said he notes that I have learned some important things through this process: that I am someone who needs a companion in life; that I engage this process deeply, not merely scraping along the surface, and that the feelings, thoughts and events along the way are felt deeply and considered carefully.

--There was a point, early in the week, when it felt as if there was no-one who really cared whether I lived or died. I was ill, everything was at a low ebb, and life seemed hard, almost too hard to carry on with. The therapist to the rescue again: he said that's how I felt, and one is entitled to such feelings, and now let's ask whether the feelings accurately reflect reality. Of course, they do not; indeed, one is blessed with wonderful friends, two very special sons, and family that is very dear. But in the wee hours of the dark nights, it's easier to believe the other thing.

--Rented Seabiscuit. Of the many powerful scenes, the one that has stayed the longest in memory is the one where the older fellow, Howard, has been taken to Mexico to recover from the death of his little boy and abandonment by his wife. They are sitting in the stands, and at a nearby table are some young women, and they are talking about Howard having come for a "quickie" divorce. One of them says "Oh no. Just look at him. There's nothing quick about him." And she decides he is the person for her, that he has the depth and quality that make a lifetime together; so she moves into his life and transforms him from a forlorn figure facing a dead end into one possessed of all his old power and charm, and more. The reasons why this scene has lasted are probably pretty obvious.

--When the days have no structure, there is no goal toward which one can organize one's energy, the hours just drag by. Today I'm going to try to do something about that--practice violin, clean the house, go to a store--because there are things to do and the dank cold should not be an obstacle.

--In six days I take a plane to Israel, a pilgrim to the Bahá'í Holy Places. I plan to carry the names and faces of family and friends in my heart, and will pray for each and all in the Resting Places of the special Souls there. I plan to commune with Amelia. I plan to ask Bahá'u'lláh's guidance, that He share with me what He has in store for me so I can find the strength and purpose to carry on. And I plan to ask His blessings on one person in particular.

How Do You Answer the Questions about One Who Has Gone?

People ask me how Amelia is doing, not realizing that she has gone, and I find myself at a loss for words. In everyday English we can say she “passed away” or she “left” or “is gone.” If I were Irish I might say she had “gotten away.” Many people would say she “died,” but I cannot, nor do I believe it’s true. What are we to do, that everyday language is so impoverished in describing death, a fact we all will experience one day, and one about which there is such fear, such anticipation, yet so little to say?

Last night, it was no coincidence that, at the Nineteen Day Feast, these passages were read. They are from a talk by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in New York on April 23, 1912. He was speaking of the Titanic disaster, but listen to how He describes the leaving of this world for the next, the experiences of those who have left, and what it is that we who remain must do:

“Although such an event is indeed regrettable, we must realize that everything which happens is due to some wisdom and that nothing happens without a reason. Therein is a mystery; but whatever the reason and mystery, it was a very sad occurrence, one which brought tears to many eyes and distress to many souls.… (W)hen I consider this calamity in another aspect, I am consoled by the realization that the worlds of God are infinite; that though they were deprived of this existence, they have other opportunities in the life beyond, even as Christ has said, "In my Father's house are many mansions." They were called away from the temporary and transferred to the eternal; they abandoned this material existence and entered the portals of the spiritual world. Foregoing the pleasures and comforts of the earthly, they now partake of a joy and happiness far more abiding and real, for they have hastened to the Kingdom of God. The mercy of God is infinite, and it is our duty to remember these departed souls in our prayers and supplications that they may draw nearer and nearer to the Source itself.

"These human conditions may be likened to the matrix of the mother from which a child is to be born into the spacious outer world. At first the infant finds it very difficult to reconcile itself to its new existence. It cries as if not wishing to be separated from its narrow abode and imagining that life is restricted to that limited space. It is reluctant to leave its home, but nature forces it into this world. Having come into its new conditions, it finds that it has passed from darkness into a sphere of radiance; from gloomy and restricted surroundings it has been transferred to a spacious and delightful environment. Its nourishment was the blood of the mother; now it finds delicious food to enjoy. Its new life is filled with brightness and beauty; it looks with wonder and delight upon the mountains, meadows and fields of green, the rivers and fountains, the wonderful stars; it breathes the life-quickening atmosphere; and then it praises God for its release from the confinement of its former condition and attainment to the freedom of a new realm. This analogy expresses the relation of the temporal world to the life hereafter -- the transition of the soul of man from darkness and uncertainty to the light and reality of the eternal Kingdom. At first it is very difficult to welcome death, but after attaining its new condition the soul is grateful, for it has been released from the bondage of the limited to enjoy the liberties of the unlimited. It has been freed from a world of sorrow, grief and trials to live in a world of unending bliss and joy. The phenomenal and physical have been abandoned in order that it may attain the opportunities of the ideal and spiritual. Therefore, the souls of those who have passed away from earth and completed their span of mortal pilgrimage…have hastened to a world superior to this. They have soared away from these conditions of darkness and dim vision into the realm of light. These are the only considerations which can comfort and console those whom they have left behind.

"Furthermore, these events have deeper reasons. Their object and purpose is to teach man certain lessons….The purpose is that the people of the world may turn to God, the One Protector; that human souls may rely upon His preservation and know that He is the real safety. These events happen in order that man's faith may be increased and strengthened. Therefore, although we feel sad and disheartened, we must supplicate God to turn our hearts to the Kingdom and pray for these departed souls with faith in His infinite mercy so that, although they have been deprived of this earthly life, they may enjoy a new existence in the supreme mansions of the Heavenly Father….If God protects, nothing can imperil man's safety; and if it be not His will to safeguard, no amount of preparation and precaution will avail.” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 46)

How much more meaningful—and comforting—it is to say that Amelia completed her “span of mortal pilgrimage” and, having done so, “soared” and “hastened” toward the “portals of the spiritual world,” wherein she partakes “of a joy and happiness far more abiding and real” than any she knew here, and now her soul “is grateful, for it has been released from the bondage of the limited to enjoy the liberties of the unlimited.” As He says, although knowing there is a reason for her being “transferred to the eternal,” still the heart is sad, and these “are the only considerations which can comfort and console those whom they have left behind.”

Besides, if I don’t put sadness behind and get about building that new life, as Amelia herself is doing in that new world, among the gardens that surround the “supreme mansions of the Heavenly Father,” she’ll call my mother and tell on me. Oh yes, she threatened that once, a long time ago, and neither of us will have forgotten. I also learned a long time ago it is always best to take her at her word!

4:52 A.M.

The Westering Moon, 5:30a.m.
Grand Canyon South Rim, Oct. 2003

Random thoughts from the edge of awareness:

--Since 1974 I have slept on the right side of the bed. Tried the left side a little while ago, but it was no go. Hope the woman who comes into my life likes the left side. Or maybe we'll both wander around the territory until we find a new arrangment that fits us both?

--God is always there. I always thought that, had read it in the Writings, but last August, after I had spoken to Him out of fear and fury, he sent a person I had never met before to tell me that it was all right: I could yell and swear at Him if I had to, I could tell Him anything I wanted, I could even let anger carry me away for awhile, but He understood. It was OK. However hard I tried to cut Him out of my life, He wasn't going to leave or let me, because He loves me. Just now I was remembering that, but feeling it for the first time--as opposed to thinking about it--and began to feel something new, some new presence making its way, like a soft white light, slowly but insistently into my heart; and a sense of calm began to radiate outward. It didn't last, my mind took over again pretty quickly, but for a moment I had a glimpse of what it might feel like never to be alone again.

--Went to the skin doctor yesterday. She's small but after zapping me in a dozen places with her liquid nitrogen bottle, I look like I definitely got the worst in that fight! She congratulated me on my good work using sun block, which she says to use every day, all 365 of them. My guilty secret is that I never use it. Last summer in Sedona, the fellow who was working on Amelia and me insisted that we take all our clothes off and bathe in the noonday desert sun for ten minutes or so, every day. This was another way for our skin to cleanse itself, he said, and a way of contacting nature that was meant to be relaxing, invigorating, a vivid reminder of our connection with a larger world, a chance to get outside the body and experience the natural realm directly. Aside from some interesting new sunburn spots, he was right: it was an oddly reassuring, if logistically difficult thing to do with neighbors all around. And I got freckles on the insides of my arms. But here's the thing: he insisted that skin cancers come from diet, that the fats in processed foods especially, act like little magnifiers as perspiration brings them to the surface, concentrating ultrviolet rays on a few cells at a time and destroying them. Instead, we were supposed to have this fairly moderate exposure to the sun and then scrub down with a coarse brush every night and put on an oil compounded of edible vegetable oils, to be scrubbed off each morning. It might just be, after hearing the doc's verdict yesterday, that this fellow was right.

--Attraction is a selective thing; the physical aspect of attraction can change. With some people, I realize, the attraction I feel to them is of the mind; with others the eyes, or the heart, or the ears because they have a wonderful voice, or other parts we won't discuss. With Amelia, as our lives grew together, the attraction was so entire that sometimes I had this feeling of wanting to walk right into her, the way the ghosts in movies walk through walls--to become so completely at one with her that we would become a single being, in touch at every point along our spiritual, physical, emotional selves, inside and out. The frustration of physical boundaries! That's what making love is about for me: the attempt to transcend the essential aloneness of being on this earth, to come so close to the one we truly love that no difference can be found. We try to reach the place where no words are needed, where mind and heart and soul are so intermingled they share and communicate completely, surely, effortlessly. But we never quite make it, because we are alone: it's just us and God, ultimately; we are born alone, and it is as a single soul that we finally stand before Him, stripped of body, worry, fear, hope, everything, and begin the next life. What a gift it is, that in this life we can get close to another human being with whom, for our brief span of years, we can so nearly share everything we are and can become; and that when we finally lay our bodies down, to know we will merge with them in some new way the words of this world can't describe.

And now it's time to get on with the day. No more sleep for now!

Marriage: The Hollywood Model

I was thinking today about the Hollywood model of love and marriage--those wonderful couples that, even when they fight, seem to do so at some pinnacle of romanticism--and how pervasive and subtle it is, how much our expectations are shaped by our exposure to films. I was thinking, too, about Amelia's and my own love and marriage, and since it obviously bore no likeness to the Hollywood type, whether I had been missing something. I don't think so, but maybe it's like the story of the fleas: if they're put in a jar with the top on, they learn to jump only to the level of the top; once the top is gone, though, they still only jump up to the level where it used to be. In other words, maybe there is a kind of love out there where the couple never talks about anything ordinary, they're still passionate but have jobs (great ones) and kids, and just live these remarkable lives, but since we didn't have that, I don't know what it's really all about.

What we did have was: lots of fear at the beginning, and lots of awkwardness; lots of arguments about insignificant stuff; occasions where one of us hurt the other deeply; sleepless nights; worries about money and work and health and family; lots of trips where we saw neat things, fought, ate good food, fought, annoyed and offended each other, walked on the seashore, and spent a lot of money; miles and miles and miles of driving kids or each other from one place to another; endless housework; and a midlife crisis that nearly ruined us.

Amelia was not romantic in the Hollywood sense. If I sent her flowers, she told me I was wasting money. Later, if I sent her flowers, she'd tell me just to apologize and not waste money, or her time, with flowers. "I don't want a whole garden of flowers, I want you to stop doing hurtful things." (You've got to admit, she had a point: flowers can be a pretty cheap fix.) If I took her to dinner at a fancy place, chances are she would worry more about the cost and the budget than she would enjoy the food. She did like some of the presents I'd bring home, but she'd rather have me come home. And she had a hard time saying "I love you", or listening to me say it; she wanted deeds, not pretty words.

I would get frustrated, sometimes, with this approach, which seemed so matter-of-fact, and it was pretty hard, too: it's a whole lot easier to say you love someone than to show them every day that you do with respect, courtesy, thoughtfulness and cleaning the bathroom without having to be asked.

And so the years went by. I don't want to say life was bad or bleak or any of those things; it was just full of, well, living. We did give our relationship a lot of thought and effort, after it almost died, but that was part of the larger whole of making a life together. There were times when we would laugh together so hard we couldn't stand up; times when I'd look at the heavens and give thanks for being alive, for sharing some special moment with Amelia.

Because she was a very special person. I knew it instinctively when I asked her to marry me, and only as time went by did I understand and feel deeply how very special she was (is!). Her integrity was bone-deep and very real. Her faith was strong and only got stronger as time went by. She always, always thought of others before herself, and then, bringing herself to account, would ask what else she should be doing because she was not helping enough, was not thoughtful enough.

It might sound like she didn't, but she also had the most profound sense of her own value as a person. She had insecurities, but she sensed her value, not in an egotistical sense, but as a spiritual being that God had taken the time to create and nurture, to bestow gifts upon, and to give responsibility for making a contribution to the world. I saw this when I knew her story, that she defied the norms and left her unfaithful husband; she never had an unkind word to say about him, but she knew she was worth more than that.

And she was passionate, about learning and helping her students. That's what she's doing in this picture: a Baha'i "study circle". Look how alive she is!

Then her illness came and threw a brilliant white light on our love and our marriage. It was like a final exam: everything we had done or learned was tested. Every good seed we had planted bore its fruit. Every disagreement we had ended in unity, we saw, had made us stronger, better able to handle the hard conversations, the bad news, the impossible decisions.

As her end approached, I was desperate to know whether she felt I had been a good husband. She told me so, but I still had doubts: was she just trying to make me feel better? And then, when the time came to say goodbye, before the light of her reason was doused forever in this world, we embraced, and she cried because we would be apart.

Sometimes I let myself remember that conversation. I think that if a man goes through his life, and a special woman tells him that, among all the things of the earth she will miss, one of them will be his company, then yes, his life has been worth something. Love has been given, and love received.

Maybe they'll make a movie about that one day.

Racing Through Madness

Memory takes me back these days to when Amelia and I were just falling in love. I've mentioned this part of the story in an earlier post ("The End in the Beginning," Dec. 20th), and find I must write it. Family may recall hearing this, or parts of it, but it's never been written anywhere.

After the coup on September 11, 1973, when the Chilean presidential palace was attacked, burned and stormed by troops, the new junta imposed a curfew that, for three days, prohibited anyone from going out on pain of being stopped, searched and, sometimes, summarily shot. After that people could go out from 8 to 11 am, and a week later, between the hours of 7 am and 3 pm. That was an inconvenience and a concern, because there was no news from anywhere--buses and trains all stopped, no mail, no phones and martial music and propaganda the only things on the radio.

You didn't need the radio to know what was going on, though. Every night we heard it: the sound of shooting, of explosions, as the military ransacked the poor districts of every town, our little provincial capital included, looking for arms, suspects, fugitives. These were the nights of the "desaparecidos," people who disappeared forever into the darkness. Sometimes you could see the flashes on the horizon. When I ventured into one of these areas one morning, old men were walking in the street, weeping.

And there was no news from Amelia. I knew she lived in a neighborhood that would be targeted, so I was doubly concerned; but there was nothing I could do.

After two weeks, I think it was, news came that the first train would be passing through town, coming from the south on its way to the capital. I told my boss I had to go; he agreed, there was no class anyway.

The station was jammed. Everyone in town seemed to be there, waiting for arrivals, saying goodbye to relatives who had been stranded or who were on their own missions, like me, or hoping to board the train themselves. None of us was prepared, though, for the sight that greeted us when the train finally rolled into the station: people everywhere! The cars were filled to overflowing. People clung to the stairways in the cars' entrances, wedged themselves into the connectors between the coaches, huddled in the windows, barely able to stay inside the cars for lack of space. Using the open stairway--there were no doors on the stairs, just at either end of the aisle that ran down the center of each car--was hopeless. I joined the throng that walked up and down the sides of the train, asking those hanging from the windows if there was a space, any space. The answer was always no: "Are you crazy, gringo? Where do you think you're going to fit if I can't even get my back inside the window?"

Finally I forced the issue; I had to get to Amelia! "Grab my bag," I yelled at one group of faces, "I'm coming aboard!" I threw my bag at the window opening, about 9 feet above the road-bed, whence it disappeared into the darkened interior, and, jumping up and grabbing the window sill, began walking my feet, slipping and sliding, up the dirty outside of the old coach. Seeing, I guess, that I was determined to get in, hands finally reached out, took my arms, and dragged me inside, where I sprawled full length across the laps of strangers until I could get to my feet.

I saw they had told the truth: there was no space at all. There was not much time to think about this, though, because just then the train started with a tremendous jerk. Had we been any less tightly packed, standing there in the aisle, we all would have fallen like so many dominoes. As it was, we simply leaned into each other and, since there was no space to fall, swayed with the car's motion, back and forth, until the group of us could stand upright again.

Four hours later, having taken on more people than we let off, I think--a mystery of sorts--we arrived in Santiago. There being no buses or taxis, hardly any vehicles in fact except jeeps with machine guns mounted on the back, armored personnel carriers and tanks, I set off walking to the National Baha'i Center, about 5 miles away.

My path took me within a block of the Moneda palace, the one that's burning in the picture, and so I went that way. My eyes saw something they had never imagined before.

The palace itself was still in ruins, facing out on the square that, in calmer days, had been the scene of parades, demonstations, and all kinds of patriotic displays. There was still a smell of burning in the air, though the fires had long since gone out. There were soldiers everywhere, armed to the teeth, fingering their weapons as they watched, stone-faced, the people passing by. Every one of the buildings fronting the square was pocked with bullet holes, sometimes concentrated on particular windows where some sniper had dared fire on the power massed below: the machine-gun and cannon fire had turned these windows, in their thick cement and brick walls, into circular openings, shocked, empty eyes staring from the faces of the ravaged buildings. The line of white steel flagpoles across the side of the square that fronted on the palace had been turned into twisted lace-works by the bullets and shells that had passed through them as the soldiers hosed their fire into the president's mansion.

Most stunning of all was the main post and telegraph office, cater-corner from the mansion on the eastern side of the square. I had often gone through its green, 20-foot high steel and brass doors to mail letters and send cables, but these massive portals had taken a direct, point-blank hit from a tank cannon; they lay crumpled and holed, like so much tin foil, in a corner of the cavernous entryway of the building, an opening that had almost lost its rectangular shape, too, under the torrent of steel and explosives that had flowed through it.

I was not welcome in that place. To linger was to attract the attention of these murderous teenagers, and nobody had to tell me they were subject to no restraint. I kept walking. As night fell I arrived at the Baha'i Center. It was untouched, as was the silent neigborhood around it, and I went in. A little food, what I had brought with me from home, and then to sleep on the floor, hoping to wake in time to walk back to the station and see if there would be a train north to Valparaiso the next day.

The sun of early spring, coming through the windows, awoke me the next morning. The daily routine began: shower, shave, dress, a bite of bread, ready for the door. But as I shaved, in a back room looking out over the garden behind the building, shots rang out--close, much too close! I dropped to the floor and crawled across the second storey, inching an eye over a window sill. Not being able to see anything outside, I hurried downstairs, dropped to all fours, and crawled to the living room window, looking carefully past the high fence that extended across the front of the Center, and out into the street. A personnel carrier pulled up just as I got my head over the windowframe and ten young infantrymen poured out. They took up defensive positions around the vehicle as shots began to fall around them. They returned fire and then went, leapfrogging, down the street, away from my hiding place, toward an unfinished high rise apartment across the main avenue out front. The sniper was holed up on an upper floor, waiting for soldiers to pass by and shoot at them. After ten minutes, a furious exchange of automatic weapons fire, then silence. Another ten minutes, and some of the soldiers came back, mounted up and drove away.

Down to the station, a long walk; and arrival just as the tall doors to the train platform were closing. Against all common sense, I pounded like a madman on the doors. The guard on the other side, a civilian, opened them to see who was the idiot making all the noise, and I rushed through. Ignoring his shouts to stop, I ran for the back of the train, picking up speed as it moved out of the station. Bag and I just made the last car, jumped across the gap between train and platform, and, grabbing the car's back railing, hauled my breathless self aboard. No shots, no problems; just another crowded train heading north.

Where we arrived a few hours later. A walk up the hill to Amelia's house, her surprised face, her outstretched arms, a tight hug that lasted for a long time. She was all right.

I have a letter from her, written at about that time. "My heart beats softly," she wrote, "and softly I say the words 'I love you.'"