A love letter

You learn to let it go. You learn to be gentle… to be quiet… to be interminably patient. To exercise an excruciating selflessness in the eye of a hurricane of self.  I say ‘you’… the universal ‘you’ but really I mean me. I’ve learned, rather, I’m learning.

I’m learning just how incredibly, indescribably valuable my man is to me. I’m recognizing how his touch makes life almost bearable and how with him alone I can be completely me, bereaved, devastated, shattered and somehow aching with love and gratefulness for him.

It is the everlasting duality of the grieving parent. He is the only thing that kept me anchored to this world for a long, long time. His face, his voice, his touch… only him.

How honest do I get here? How much to people really want to know?

I don’t remember much of the last nine and half months. Most of it is just choking blackness. There are flashes of memory. Memories of lying in my bed in a pool of freshly shed salt water with my arm lay across the pillow in front of me, staring. Staring at the vessels that carry my life and knowing how easily I could end it. Imagining the relief of that kind of pain… I desperately wanted to drag a blade across that paper thin skin.

People say all sorts of things about love. They throw the word around recklessly. “All you need is love,” “the greatest of these is love,” “love is a many splendid thing”…

Love, the real kind, is all about sacrifice. It’s all about choosing him because you simply couldn’t choose any other way. The tether in your chest wouldn’t allow it. Love is selfless to the point of agonizing fury. I couldn’t hurt myself.

The other day, protected in the circle of his arms, I postulated that if only everyone could experience this kind of love the world would change entirely. “Yes,” he said “until someone lost their partner.”

The love of pop music and romantic comedies misses the mark. Love is risk. Love is pain. Love is fear.

Love is worth it.