She was more beautiful than my memories could sustain. With each passing day, those images had faded making it slightly more bearable to go on without her. It was still new, yet that age old adage that time will heal all wound is, in the end, a somber truth. Even if the wound never completely heals, time helps you forget.
There hadn’t been enough time. Lying alone in the darkness, with sheets tormenting my skin and my mind assaulting my spirit with memory after memory, I could do little but stare into the hollow black. Some nights I would stumble into the living room and sit alone on the couch. A random TV show would be my solitary companion with the solemn duty of filling my mind with other things in an attempt to force out the memories. Distraction was the only method by which I could successfully function enough to continue living. For if I couldn’t contain my emotions, I wouldn’t sleep. Without sleep, I couldn’t wake to continue earning a living . I often convinced myself out of necessity that this pain I could deal with another day at another time. But that night was different. I lay in bed and wept and begged God for just one last night with her. I wished to see her face again and to feel her hand against mine. Buried beneath those tears and surrounded by the deep grey world of the night, my request was heard and my plea granted.
In a moment I was seated in a dark room. As the light lifted and expanded outward from me, I saw that I was in a crowded room with stage in front. Though the seats were filled, it felt like I was sitting alone. Grief was always that way. In a crowd of hundreds or with just a few friends I felt utterly trapped and alone. The instinct was to run away and hide. Yet hiding only amplified the feeling and I would again quickly seek companionship to alleviate it. Such a vicious trap was grief that it could neither be escaped nor avoided. Instead, any attempt to do so only tore deeper into the gaping wound. There was no ultimate escape.
Then I heard her. It was a voice like summer showers, rolling and moving across the meadows blown with the gentle gusts of a warm summer breeze. The melody she sang floated upon the wings of butterflies and whispered softly to my heart. A hundred others listened and sang along with her, but they did not hear. They did not know her. Enraptured I gazed upon the one whose voice I loved. She was more beautiful than my memories could sustain. As frozen, lifeless capsules of time, pictures were empty shells and unmoving shadows of a past life. Yet here, moving and breathing with each note she could not have been lovelier. Her eyes fluttered and her hair swayed against her shoulders, its curls resting upon her chest. I could not breathe.
Her voice ended as soon as it began. The others returned to their lives while she remained to speak to a lingering few. I waited. I watched. My heart ached and pulled as though it was being drawn to her yet my strength had evaporated in her presence. To watch her walk across the room was tasking on every muscle in my body. For so many years she stood beside me as an angel to an otherwise bitter journey.
Her laugh returned to my ears and with it wrenching pain within my stomach. Oh, how I had longed to hear that laugh again. Her youth followed her throughout the years. She never lost her joy. She never let go of the life behind her eyes. God’s grace, peace, and joy were tightly wrapped, embodied within her that I may his face each morning when I woke. Now I saw his face from a distance as she spoke to the strangers and shared her joy with them.
This is why I love her.
They said their parting ways and only she and I remained. She had not seen me thus far. I opened my mouth to speak but held it there. For what words could I say to her? All were lost in the winds that whipped through my mind. Then, after she retrieved her bag, she descended the steps in front of where I sat. She looked straight ahead determined. She didn’t see me sitting there.
Her name escaped my lips. It was loud enough to stop her and she looked at me and smiled. Her eyes captured me and my chest locked, no longer receiving air. My confession of undying love should follow. I would tell her how deeply I missed her. I started again, “I love…”
Her eyes were kind. Her smile was gentle. But it was different. She carried the same smile she had for the others that she had spoken to. It wasn’t the smile meant for me. It lacked the joy with which she had given me time and time again. The smile was empty. It lacked depth. It lacked our years of intimacy. Her eyes betrayed her. There was kindness and love, but the adoration was gone. In that moment I realized the truth. She was young again. She was younger than I had ever seen her. Her eyes had never met mine and on that day, she didn’t recognize me. We had never met. I was a middle aged man now. Even if we had met before, I would have been equally as young.
I do not know now which is worse. Losing the one you love or gazing into their eyes only to be met by a stranger’s. I held back the avalanche of emotions driving up from within me. Every part of me called out in anguish. And as if by involuntary response I finished the sentence I had started, “…that song.”
I paused again. Each word carried with it a battle to contain the hurt and brokenness. Each second was torment that I could not bear, “My wife used to sing that song…” She understood the heaviness of my heart. Her smile faded and was replaced by compassion. I wanted to bare my soul to her. I wanted to tell her that she was the woman I spoke of. I wanted to share secrets of our future, warn her of the coming struggles, and encourage her with the coming wonders that became my most cherished memories. Yet, how would I do such a thing? How could she not doubt? Would I have received such a thing at that age with anything other than shock and fear? With great inadequacy I relinquished my words, “You sound just like her.” There was a long moment where neither of us spoke. She stood patiently waiting with me in silence. I knew her heart more than she could ever be aware. She waited for us to arrive at some hidden destination. The journey there was no obstacle. “God has gifted you with the most beautiful voice… thank you for sharing it with me tonight.”
She thanked me for the kind words and said goodnight.
I watched her go and with her she once again took my heart. Everything we were, all the time waiting for movies to start in crowded theaters where we whispered secrets to each other, all quiet nights lost in each other’s dreams and childhood stories, all restaurant choices argued over, all the fights over pointless things, all of the apologies for not being fair, and all of the perfect flaws that made us unique where suddenly erased. With each step she silenced our future and our past. I was losing her all over again. But this time, I never was. She was a shadow, a ghost, and an extinguished flame grown cold by the reversal of time.
I walked outside beneath the stars and in the frigid night, collapsed to the bitter stone sidewalk. Blinded by the tears that clouded the world I cried to heaven for its injustice. Would the only way to see her again be that of strangers? Could there be any greater cruelty? For on that night, with my face between my knees and my hands shielding my head, I begged God to hush the sorrow and to carry the heaviness now thrust upon my shoulders. On that still night, I met depth of heartache I did not know and when I looked for relief, I found none.
I awoke the next morning broken and alone, returned to my bed of the night before. I have known grief. I have known sorrow. Yet these could not compare to the night I lost you for the second time and was forced, in heart wrenching agony, to watch you walk away.
For this I will be forever grateful, that I knew you and we had our life. Your smile with everlasting beauty was framed in adoration and your love overwhelmed the strongholds of my regrets. Each battle we had, apology we shared, and forgiveness we gave will be the stitching that binds the memories of laughter, peace, and late night conversations about our unrealistic ambitions. Every day with you was an answer to prayer. Every day with you was a gift given by God in his infinite compassion and grace. I can’t imagine a world without you in it. I can’t imagine a world where you aren’t my companion, love, and friend. And I do not want to live without you.