Now that you are gone

Written by Ted when Diane was away this summer.

Now that you are gone, for some reason, …. I feel the essence of your being more acutely.
Your fears, your hopes, your dreams, all seem to settle down around a core that is you
Still a mystery, of course, but a mystery with more definite shape and texture.
You are not perfect; but my dream of your perfection interfered with my knowing you truly.
Now that I can approach your reality, I feel much closer to you.
Now that you are gone, there is an enormous silence and empty space and I seem to float in that space like a spent meteor, drifting aimlessly toward oblivion.
But still, because of the solitude, I am exquisitely sensitive to the essence of you.
I feel your deep connection with your mother while talking together in the hospital before she died.
I feel the sadness and resignation that are a deep part of that connection.
I feel the spirit of your love overcoming the weight of tragedy; but this is a battle with a still uncertain outcome, even now.
And perhaps that is the essence of being human – that if we are truly sensitive to the continuous struggle to connect with others, the essential ambiguity of connections; if we can resist the temptation to shut down and indulge our selfish natures, then we will know that as long as we are alive we cannot be secure in the anticipation of remaining open and truly listening to others.
It is a struggle renewed each day and always with uncertain outcome. True enough, some days go easier than others and some days we fail to live up to our potential. We may find ourselves, as Emerson put it: “playing a fool’s game with other fools.”
But if we can embrace that uncertainty and daily rejoin the struggle, we may be rewarded by precious glimpses into the essence of being the best humans we can. For it is a joint effort, this miraculous voyage of life. It floats within the interstices of humans connecting and interacting.
And now that you are gone, I see and feel all this more clearly. But I know in my heart of hearts that if and when you come back to me, part of me will try to return to the old strategy of making you into perfection so that I can attempt to satisfy my yearning for peace.
I must hold fast to the truth that peace is at best for us humans a fleeting and nebulous thing; never the same when it comes and never what we expect. But we have to stay open in order to be connected with others even if peace is a scarce entity. For it is in these intimate connections that we may experience the something bigger than ourselves. It endures through time, grows and shapes a human essence that makes the mysterious dance of life worthwhile.