Separation

Picturebook

You see a lot of things in a half century.

This morning, riding in to work, I was listening to Copeland’s Appalachian Spring, and remembered seeing those very mountains one morning from the air. It was not springtime, but just after sunrise on a ripened midsummer morning in western Virginia. As our little plane climbed out over the fields, we rose above the line of hills; the sun reached down to the green pastures and illumined the dew that was still on them, so that between the long, dark green shadows of the trees and mountains, and reaching on both sides of the broad, sky-colored river, we seemed to be flying over a vast expanse of green silk that sparkled with emeralds and diamonds and pearls.

And then, unbidden, other pictures began to swirl before my mind’s eye, things seen during these last fifty years. There was the first time to stand on the ocean, a little boy watching the waves crashing on the dark Maine coast and receding, like thick liquid glass, across rocks covered with seaweed and barnacles; the first time to gaze down into the pastel reds and purples of the Grand Canyon at sunset; the glimpse of an eagle floating high above shining glaciers and turquoise lakes among mountain peaks; or standing at the place, near the southern end of the earth, where two great oceans come together in peaceful embrace.

And other images, of wonder and calamity alike, passing randomly across the screen of recollection: the still look of death in the eyes of a boy; men walking on the moon; guns fired in anger, and the ruins they leave; the red gold sun melting into a tropical ocean; a woman, her beauty revealed for the first time; the mysterious shadows of the midnight moon, reaching down to a canyon floor where owls hunted and their prey cried out in fear; and clouds, full of lightning and rainbows, across a green valley.

I have seen the lights of Paris, and of the gardens of God’s Arc on Mount Carmel; gray and white clouds scudding across the green plains surrounding the Resting Place of the Lord of Hosts, the Ancient of Days. I have seen my newborn son’s eyes for the first time; seen him marry in the sunlight and pledge his life to another. I have seen my wife of body and soul for more than half my time here, struggle for her last breath, and have slowly laid her lifeless hand next to her motionless body. And against all hope, I have seen the first stirrings of happiness and love in another’s eyes once again.

“How then can I sing and tell of Thine Essence, which the wisdom of the wise and the learning of the learned have failed to comprehend, inasmuch as no man can sing that which he understandeth not, nor recount that unto which he cannot attain….”

Into the Fire Once More

Well, the victory declaration earlier this week did, indeed, turn out to be premature. Last night, after a day during which the mood declined steadily, came one of the hardest moments to date, harder to bear, in its way, than the collapse in the Haifa cemetery. Here’s a thing: loneliness can literally drive you to your knees, robbing you of the strength to do anything but mourn, to call out to a silent God for succor, for relief, for understanding, for even the smallest sign that one is not utterly alone in the vastness of the night.

After the storm has passed, the search for meaning begins. On one level, and as a wise friend reminded me, thirty years’ constant companionship lost, even over a relatively prolonged period, is not something one recovers from quickly; the five months since Amelia’s passing, when measured against all those years, are as nothing. I knew that; my therapist and some good friends, one of whom has also suffered a catastrophic personal loss, told me that moments would come that, unpredictably but surely, would lay me low, and that the process could continue for years. But knowing is not preparedness for the crushing power of the emotions that flatten the mind and heart, robbing the body of its strength and casting everything into darkness.

That same wise friend also said that sometimes sadness is born out of attachment to outcomes; when the thing or the result one desires does not come, the heart asks why. That is part of what happened last night: my desired schedule for a return to a normal life, with the love and companionship I seek, appears to be very different from God’s schedule. The end to which I am attracted, one has to admit, may not actually be the outcome that is best for the life I hope to pursue in time; and while generally the mind can see this, and adapts accordingly, moments such as last night’s are a reminder of the great power of the heart and the emotions. The heart tells, sometimes, a very different story than the mind: of days and nights unbearably long, of a constant struggle against the insidious feeling that happiness, now absent temporarily, will never return. Living in the moment is a precious gift, unless the moment feels like a wasteland.

It is important, when such grief strikes, not to short-cut it, as we are so often taught to do. We are taught to hide away any sign of “weakness,” to keep a stiff upper lip, even in private. So here is what I learned last night: when the grief is deep enough, there is no option but to allow it to take its time. Had the house been on fire, I would have been hard pressed to rise from where I had dropped. Gradually the storm passed, though, and I was able to find my bed and be released from the burden of consciousness. As I drifted off I realized there was something else I knew: that this would pass, at least for a time, as it has before, and tomorrow would be different.

This morning brought another idea. I arose thinking of the masters who make swords for the samurai. The blade’s hot metal is quenched in the water, then reheated, folded back on itself, and hammered out once more, a process which might be repeated hundreds of times. At the moment the blade finds the blessed relief of the water, it might rejoice in the respite; but the fire comes once more, and the hammer, and it is only through that process, in all its phases, that the blade becomes fine, supple and strong.

2,004 Words

Before Pilgrimage

After Pilgrimage

Building Bridges

Terraces and Bridge in the Bahá'í Gardens
Haifa, Israel

“Don’t rush me,” she said. I sat back, stunned and a little chagrined. Amelia had said she was leaving, twice in fact, and she had been mostly asleep—or unconscious—for several of the previous days, so the strength of her voice and her vehemence now were totally unexpected. We had all puzzled over her grip on life, had wondered why she was holding on with such obvious tenacity; and I sensed that it fell to me to tell her that she should feel free to leave. So while I leaned over to hug her good-bye, one more heart-rending time, I whispered in her ear, “Dear Amelia, we don’t want you to go, but we don’t want you to suffer either, so if you feel you have to go, it’s all right. We’ll be okay; don’t worry about us.” To which, her firm instruction not to hurry her.

Looking back, I realize now that, as my sister said, Amelia was building a bridge to her next life and in some way known only to her, Amelia saw the bridge was not complete; she would hold on until it was finished. A remarkable statement, considering Amelia was irredeemably slipping into coma, had not left her bed in nearly a week, was heavily sedated against the steadily rising tide of her pain. I have often asked myself what was this bridge, this final, mystical and mysterious project she was still working on as she stood on the boundary of the spiritual world to which, inexorably, she was being drawn? And what was there for those of us who remain here to learn?

I can see now that Amelia’s preparation for her next life began well before the final decline of her health, perhaps even as much as two or three years before. She was quiet and discrete, but very systematic about it; while never giving up hope of recovery, she nevertheless set about getting herself ready spiritually, preparing her closest family for a life without her visible presence, and making peace with all those whom she thought she had hurt, and who had hurt her.

I had noticed that Amelia’s prayer life changed markedly about a year after her diagnosis. That first year was largely spent in coming to grips with the blow that had landed on us all, and in doing the things she felt impelled to do if, as the doctors said, only six months or so remained to her. We went to learn about pain control through yoga; we traveled to the Bahá'í Holy Places to seek God’s aid and rejoice in each other’s company in those sacred precincts; we visited family; and we explored healing approaches and made hard choices.

By the second year, though, Amelia became even more regular than she had always been in praying and meditating in the morning upon awakening, and in the evening before retiring. She read all the books she could find about healing, spiritual healing especially, and the mind-body connection, and she began re-reading the history of the Bahá'í Faith. Her understanding of the lives of the Faith’s Central Figures deepened, and so correspondingly did her love for Them, her gratitude for their sacrifices and the labors they had undertaken so we might know the truth They brought. She read deep analyses of certain of Bahá'u'lláh’s Books and Tablets, deriving energy and inspiration from them. She rededicated herself to serving the Faith, by facilitating a monthly study group, and she found new ways to support my own work at the Bahá'í National Center. There was, I can gratefully say, support I could give her in these efforts: the logistics of the study group, for instance, were my responsibility.

At the time I thought this was all a part of her strategy for healing. Now I understand that her work was that, but it was also more than that: she needed to know whence she was going, how to prepare for the journey and what she might find there. She was praying, among other things, for guidance and insight. At one point, a book found its way into her hands; missing its title page, we never could find out the author’s name or when it was published, but it purported to be the story, written by his daughter, of a man who had died and who was sharing with her, in her dreams, his experiences in the next world. Compared with the Bahá'í Writings, the story seemed to share a similar vision, to have a certain ring of truth about it, and the story was positive, uplifting and reassuring. This seemingly random gift greatly aided her in forming an impression of that next life, of the dynamics of spiritual growth in that other, vastly different place, and the knowledge she gained in this way brought her great comfort. Through these and other means, any fear Amelia might have had of that future existence was changed into certainty, even eagerness. A month before she passed, I asked her whether she was afraid of death. “Oh no,” she said, “it’s going to be wonderful. Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá will be waiting for me.”

While Amelia was working on herself, she was also working on us. One example: I had spent many years in music, even thinking of a career as a music professor, but over the years my violin had spent longer and longer periods in storage. Once, taking it out of its case, I found it had cracked, so I got an estimate of the repair cost: $850. With neither the budget for the repairs nor an immediate need to use the instrument, back into the closet it went. Years went by, until the year 2001, when Amelia received an early distribution on her life insurance policy. It turned out that if her doctor would certify that Amelia was going to die in six months, the insurance company would pay out up to half the death benefit. Amelia reasoned that this was her money, she might need it for uninsured medical costs, and she was going to get it; which she did. The first thing she said, though, when the check arrived in the mail, was that I was going to get the violin fixed. I knew that look and that tone, so I didn’t bother to argue. Even before the violin came back from the shop, Amelia had found an ad for a chamber music group at the local community college and, using the same look and the same tone, informed me I was going to contact the professor immediately; which I did. I eventually enrolled in the class and spent several enjoyable months playing with the group, right up to the summer of her passing. We never spoke of this, or at least not until near the very end, but we both knew what she was doing: reacquainting me with an activity that would bring me relief from the emptiness after she had gone.

Another example: our oldest son had been distant from us, and especially from Amelia, over some misunderstandings in the past. Before her diagnosis, out of the essential goodness of his heart, he had found a way to open the door to a new relationship, an opportunity Amelia and I were both glad to seize. After the diagnosis, Amelia’s determination to be more involved in his life became even greater, and more purposeful, as well. We found opportunities to visit him and his family; phone conversations became almost daily occurrences; and each of us took renewed joy from these exchanges. Part of Amelia’s motivation was naturally a mother’s desire to shower her son with love; but also and explicitly, it was to try to ensure that he would be freed of any possibility of remorse or regret over the time lost through those misunderstandings. Amelia treated him as though that time had never happened, or had served to enrich our new lives as a reunited family. How her heart rejoiced, in her final days, in his companionship and presence and his tender care of her!

As her illness became more grave, Amelia seemed to excel at finding ways of showing those around her that she loved them, that she was grateful for their support, and she became a constant, inexhaustible source of encouragement. She missed no opportunity, for instance, to tell our youngest son and his wife how pleased she was that they had married, how sure she was they would have a wonderful life together, how happy she was that this special new daughter had come into our little family. The home health-care person we had to hire received such sweetness and gratitude from Amelia that Alicja fell in love with her, attending her memorial service, having a Mass said for her, offering to help us free of charge after her contract was up, weeping at her own loss, deep despite the brevity of their acquaintance. In all kinds of ways, Amelia was giving us memories and reassurances so that in the long, lonely days to come we might treasure each of those moments, might be assured in her love for us, might know that she was grateful to God and to us for the life we had shared, and might take such comfort as we could from knowing she left with only the fondest recollections of our all-too-short journey together.

And she made peace. Amelia and her youngest brother had had a stormy relationship, despite her having helped him enormously in coming to this country, getting established here, and ultimately bringing his family to join him. He hurt her deeply, and for that reason we had had, in effect, to cut him out of our lives. Amelia, however, always felt that somehow she had let him down, and that in any case, for his sake and for her own, peace had to be reestablished. About a year before her passing, she reached out to him, going to see him with a trusted friend who would, if necessary, shield her from his aggression. Then, about three weeks before she passed, unexpectedly one afternoon she said she wanted to see him again. I said I wasn’t sure this was a good idea, as she was already quite weak, but Amelia was adamant. Seeing it would be hard for me to participate in such an encounter, she enlisted another friend and off they went. They had tea together and, at the end, she invited him to our home the next day. This was strength that, by any objective measure, Amelia did not have, but somehow she mustered the resources necessary and, when he and his wife came the next day, they spent more than an hour going through old family photographs. It was obvious to those of us observing that this exercise was much more important to him than to her, and that it was tiring her, but never once did she suggest he stop; on and on she let him go, until he knew he had been heard, that she loved him. His behavior has been markedly different since that time.

Then, as her life slowly ebbed away and friends and family gathered around, she held on. Day after day in her bed Amelia would be medicated for the pain and she would sleep, waking less and less frequently but always, we could tell, aware of our presence in the house. While one of us stayed by her bedside, the rest were out in the living room, going through photographs and sharing memories, laughing and crying in turns as we celebrated her life and grew closer to each other. New people would come into this little group, some of them with hurts and conflicts, but gradually they caught the special rhythms of that time and the conflicts melted; healing and peace became constant, palpable, ever-present for us all. And still she held on. I know now that, when she told me not to rush her, it was because in some mysterious way Amelia sensed the healing that was occurring; she sensed we were all gathering our strength, helping each other become ready for the challenges ahead; and so she simply endured until she knew that our strength was, at last, equal to the task. And then she took her flight.

It should not be thought that all this preparing for her passing and its aftermath meant that Amelia had given up hope of recovery, or that she stopped working toward a cure. She did not; she doubled and redoubled her efforts as the laborious months wore away. Friends have commented on this tenacity, what amounted to an heroic, almost ferociously determined response to the challenge the illness represented: knowing that pancreatic cancer admits, really, of no survivors, the temptation would have been to conclude that one’s time had come, yet Amelia did not. Instead, she focused all her will, all her strength, on healing, striking a dynamic balance between spiritual and material approaches to the problem. Perhaps this was itself part of her preparation, or more accurately, of her preparation of us, her loved ones; but it was also an affirmation, I think, of her understanding of the interplay between divine will and our own free will. Amelia knew, deep in her heart, that there are chances and accidents in the world, and that our response to them must be to rise above them through effort and spiritual transformation; and that if it were truly God’s will for her to abandon this world in favor of the next, then the only way really to know His will, to prove it beyond doubt, was through action. It was action, in both her inner and outer life, to which Amelia consecrated herself, and we who knew and loved her are the richer for it.

Nor did her work end with her passing. A month later and a continent away, I knew she was still busy tying up the very last loose ends.

I had gone to the south of Chile to visit Amelia’s sister and her best friend, to share those final days with them in some small way. A woman lives there, perhaps the last and only person with whom Amelia had had no chance to make peace. Years before, this lady had hurt Amelia deeply, betraying her confidence and friendship of years, and they had never spoken since. So my last day in that town arrived and, through a series of wholly unplanned decisions and events, I found myself sitting down at a table in a small coffee house when, at the same instant, this erstwhile friend arrived! We were both shocked to find each other; still, she invited me to sit with her and her husband and share lunch. For the next hour and a half we spoke together, of Amelia, of the cancer in this lady’s family, and of the lives we had led since the breach. When our time ended, peace and good feeling had been restored, each had helped the other with the challenges we were facing, and we parted friends once more. Out on the sidewalk, instinctively I turned my face toward the sky and said, “Amelia, you did that beautifully. Mission accomplished, my sweet little girl.” And I know it was so.

Daylight Is Breaking

Sunrise: Looking East over the Bay of Haifa
February 6th

Just like the sunrise, new understandings are arising inside my head, my heart. Maybe a new day really is dawning in this recently-troubled life.

Here are some of the signs:

--I can see our marriage with Amelia objectively, with all its wonder and its difficulties, too. It is hard thinking about these things, because to say there was some part of our relationship that was not fully realized or fully satisfying feels, initially, like speaking ill of the dead. But these are realities, too, and I'm not blaming her: these were ways I also allowed our relationship to be. When the point of guilt is passed, when perspective is gained, it's a great feeling of freedom. Our work together, at least in this life, is done; our issues, our loose ends, have all come to their natural point of closure. What a feeling; what a relief; what a gift and a blessing.

--Life choices are becoming clearer, and it has been possible actually to begin taking action. Here's another relief: that the mind can work with these matters; they are a class of problem with which one is already familiar. As has happened so many times before, the initial uncertainty and confusion gradually give way to awareness of how the process works, to the influx of new information, a growing sense of what are the right questions to be asking, where some of the answers might be found, who it is that has the needed information. No answers yet, but the questions are becoming steadily more focused, more useful and effective. And the corollary of this is that all the insistence I have been hearing about taking time to think about and, ultimately, make these decisions, now becomes reasonable, bearable, because I recognize there is a sequence and a process, and I can feel that I'm on that familiar path. The content is different; the process is the same.

--A significant corner was turned in Haifa: my thinking is now mainly oriented toward the future, not the past. It is not loss and pain and loneliness that dominate my days, it is curiosity about the future, thinking about those life choices, and rejoicing in what has been saved as well as what is reawakening after a long sleep.

--The prospect of a new relationship feels much more welcome now, and not because of the overpowering, unreasoning need to fill the void left by Amelia's passing, but because I am still among the living, I feel strong in body and soul alike. I know I have work to do, life to experience, and I need a partner with whom to do all those things. It's early to know who that person will be; maybe we have met, maybe that particular adventure has yet to begin, but I know that I am moving steadily toward the point of readiness.

How has this happened? God is helping, no question, and so is Amelia; I know this because that's what kind of person she is, and I know she loves me and wants my happiness. Family and good friends, too: those who are closest have each a nugget of wisdom to add, a piece of the puzzle to offer, once I could bring myself to ask them.

And that special soul met on Pilgrimage: not only is she insightful about such things, but being around her throws light on the possibilities, on who I am becoming as I emerge from the crucible, who I want to be in making the most of this new opportunity for life that has come my way--through suffering and loss, to be sure, but still a gift, if I can make it one; if God wills it so. The temptation is to allow myself to be shaped by the dynamics of the relationship; the answer, perhaps, is to think deeply and objectively about how best to use these next years, in service and in happiness, and build a relationship that is consistent with the goals. One cannot live through another; she cannot supply the happiness I seek; and yet I sense that it is also true that with the right partner, happiness and fulfillment can be brought so much closer, the product of shared effort, mutual inspiration, the creativity of two.

As I read this back, it's hard not to escape a sense that, in a year's time, these words will look foolish and presumptuous, a premature declaration of victory; but it's where I am now.

Strong Wings

Eagle in the Bahá'í Gardens
Haifa

Ah, jet lag. It's 4:49 am on Sunday but my body remembers that, across two oceans, the sun is passing its zenith, and so it woke me up to enjoy the light. No matter that outside my snowbound window, the only light is from the streetlamp.

But I woke up thinking about wings, strong wings against other skies.

After Amelia went on, Husayn and I went West, drawn eventually to the Grand Canyon's North Rim. We had gone for a long walk on one of the trails and, when we stopped to rest, there floated into our view two golden eagles. I heard their call first, then saw them, gliding down the air over the opposite wall of the Canyon. One was ahead of the other, and as we watched the second one folded its wings and stooped down the breeze to catch the leader, touching it in passing and starting a riotous round of play, swooping and darting and chasing each other in the silvery air over the treetops. For several minutes they did this, coming in and out of our line of sight; once, when we thought they had left, they came back again, floating once more until finally they faded from our sight. A blessing and a symbol they were, I think, of the time we two were spending together; I like to think of us as two eagles, and our time together a gift from the Hand of God, pure and simple.

I think I read once that among eagles and certain other large sky people, when one is hurt or ailing, the other will fly alongside, even help to hold the other up with a wing until they can reach a safe resting-place. I had that experience on Pilgrimage. Here is how it was.

Among the 180 or so pilgrims from all across the world, there was a woman. She's from northern California and, for no reason visible to me, I felt drawn to her. As it happened, the only vacant seat in the room was next to her, and expecting others might come, normally I would have remained standing; but there was something about her, about her graceful bearing and her lovely face, that emboldened and urged me to cross the room and claim the seat. Within moments we were talking, and right away I felt that this was a very special person, indeed.

Over the succeeding days we spent a good deal of time in each other's company, and felt so comfortable that we decided to spend one of our free days together, visiting places in Haifa where the group did not go. By this time she knew my recent story, and in ways large and small had given comfort, shown sympathy, offered new ways of looking at the chapter just closing and the one opening before me. More, it was as if she were showing me a door into that future, into a world where there is happiness, useful labor, tenderness, companionship, and pulling me forward into that place. On this day, however, all those things were to come into sharp focus.

We had gone to the Bahá'í Cemetery on Mt. Carmel. Among the places I wanted to visit was the grave of a dear friend who is buried there. As we walked along the shaded paths among the silent people, she began to tell me how she had made a will before traveling, a sensible precaution when visiting such a troubled country. She was describing the funeral plans she had made when it all came back: Amelia's last breath, the night she was prepared for burial, how we placed her in her coffin, the trouble I had had supporting the beloved head as I lifted her off the table where she had been so lovingly wrapped, how we had snuggled her new teddy bear at her side for her body's long rest. I began to breathe as if I had run for miles and miles, my knees lost their strength and, just before falling, I found a curbstone on which I sat, heavily, while grief had its way with my darkened mind and helpless body.

And, miracle of miracles, she was there, this new friend. Placing an arm around my shoulders she took some of the weight I could no longer bear; speaking calming words, she conveyed that she understood, that the pain would pass, that I had done such a good job for Amelia and for all those others, that there was nowhere to go more important than being in this moment, when the soul could finally lay down its burden of sadness. For a long while we sat as the waves of grief washed past and flowed on their way; and always the tender, sympathetic touch, giving strength, caring and relief from being alone in the midst of the chill immensity of a lonely life. Like being sheltered by the wings of angels, it was, and borne up by them when one's own strength has left.

There is no knowing, yet, what life will bring, what sort of part in it this special soul and I might share, if any at all. That afternoon, though, was a lifetime gift and a righteous act, as the Jews might say, for which I will always be grateful. She shared generously out of the strength she possessed, earned through her own trials and losses, and my own flight has resumed, haltingly still perhaps, but I have glimpsed what the sky has to offer and shall go there, God willing.

A Chapter Closes, A Chapter Opens: Or, There and Back Again

Outside the Shrine of Baha'u'llah
Afternoon

I do feel a little like Bilbo Baggins today: I set foot onto the road outside my door and it carried me far, far away, to adventures, heartache and moments of great happiness; and then home again at the end.

The Pilgrimage is over, yet it lingers and I have little doubt its effects will develop for some time to come. They were ten intense, complex days, impossible to describe in just a few words. How can you capture the essence of seeing old friends and making new ones; of communing with God in places of quiet beauty and great spiritual power; and of the feeling of prayers answered? As I sat before the Thresholds of the resting places of the special Souls whose labors and sacrifices gave birth to the Faith that saved my life, thinking of family and friends, there was a sense that one long chapter in my life was ending and a new one opening in its stead.

I think that opening may be slow, but only God really knows. The trip home has been bittersweet, full of nostalgia and longing, and fatigue; but over all is a sense of a future about to happen. Love will be in it, and hard work; these things have already been glimpsed, but I pray that my world will, indeed, have changed forever, never to return to the routines and habits of the past. How else to honor the blessings bestowed in such abundance?

Amelia was with me all the time, whether in the picture I carried with me everywhere, or in the memory of the delight she took in the flowers, the great cloud-filled sky over the Plain of Akka, and her remembrance of the courage and love that flourished there amid such hardship; or in the tears she shed as she sought relief from her heavenly Father for the griefs and hurts she, too, had suffered.

And there was a sense of closure: that this Visit had come at the right time, allowing me to empty out the oceans of tears and grief still pent up, to reach a place of peacefulness, and to think about what will come now. This new chapter begins auspiciously: in the holiest Place in the world, amid beauty and selfless effort. May its early promise be fulfilled in work, in accomplishment, and in love.