Loss

Perhaps, I write to you to keep my memory alive, so that you will not forget me completely. Writing to you is like visiting the grave of an old friend. I know I will not receive a response, but I am able to talk to you as though you are still here. I may say what I need to say without interruption. I have often wondered, if it would have hurt less had one of us died rather than our relationship? The death of a close friend is painful, as I had previously experienced this with a friend Grace, but the death of a friendship, especially one as close as ours had been, hurt far more. When the person dies, they take your love with them. The love does not die. It lives on. I am curious to know your opinion on this? But of course, I shall never know.

For me, it is far easier to accept the death of a friend than that of a relationship. There are those who will argue this point. I suppose it depends on the person and the relationship. To be rejected by someone you dearly care for hurts far more. The saddest thing in the world must be to continue to love and care about someone who no longer loves you.

There are times I awake from sleep to find that I had been crying. I am often unable to recall what I dreamed. The warm, wet tears stream down my face and I am filled with a profound sense of sadness and an intense longing in my heart for something lost. Something I deeply loved. Something I dearly valued. There are times I experience a spiritual dryness, wilderness periods in my prayer life. There are times I struggle with prayer. Times it seems I have forgotten how to pray. Times it seems God Himself has turned his back. Times I question my faith and my sanity.

I read ardently. There are scores of books in my library. I have read about various saints and the mystics have always fascinated me. Their lives stories have always impressed and inspired me. Their teachings reveal so much about humanity and our desperate need for God, for love and for one another. They teach so much about the power of the human spirit and the true meaning of love, friendship and humility. Ultimately, we are here to serve God and one another.

St. Teresa of Avila, a Spanish Catholic nun and mystic confesses having intense struggles with prayer, her book Interior Castle was both comforting and informative. I have had great difficulty accepting the estrangement between us as being the will of God. I could not accept that it was I who had foolishly thrown away our friendship. I could not accept that you did not love nor care about me or my family anymore. I read St. Augustine's Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence in which her writes, "All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by His orders and under His guidance; and if from the frailty of our understanding we cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to divine Providence, show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not send it without cause."

I think about this often. My favorite verse from scripture is "All things work together for good, for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose." Romans. 8:28. I have prayed for the grace to bear this trial, those currently in my life and those to come with patience and fortitude. No matter if I should ever see you again. Sometimes, I experience what St. John of the Cross described as The Dark Night of the Soul, as you well know, there is no consolation in those moments. It is as though God Himself has turned his back. No matter how holy we are. No matter how holy we think we are.  It is one of the deepest and most genuine human afflictions and experience. It is so important that Christ Himself had to experience this. Christ  felt this as He gave up His spirit. For to know God fully we must also feel His absence. Though Christ knew the Father, he had to know, up close and personal, the human separation. We cannot know joy without sorrow, light without darkness, life without death, and the many other dichotomies that life entails.

St. Thomas Aquinas book, Treatise on the Virtues, explores the ways that people develop the skills to make good and wise decisions. "First", he said, "individuals must do all that they can to reconstruct past experiences realistically. This initial step is the most slippery one because a person's memories can be selective. For various reasons, people tend to remember only negative past experiences, or only the good, and Second, to be "open-minded". I realize how true this is. As I tended to remember the negative. I could never enjoy the moments and never felt worthy of joy and happiness. The bipolar disorder left such a distorted impression of myself and the world around me. I now try to remind myself to pray before making any decisions, especially major ones. I ask myself what is the loving thing to do? Often it requires great sacrifice.

In reading The Autobiography of St. Theresa of Lisieux, the following passage reminded me of our past friendship.

 It was not long before I saw that they just did not understand my kind of love. ..She did not understand how I loved her...Yet God has made me so that once I love. I love forever, and so I continue to pray for this girl and I love her still.

My eyes welled with tears as I continued reading these blessed words:

 I am profoundly grateful to Jesus who has never let me find anything but bitterness in earthly friendships...I have seen so many souls, dazzled by this deluding light, fly into it and burn their wings like silly moths. Then they turn again to the true unfading light of love and with new more splendid eyes, fly to Jesus the divine Fire which burns but does not destroy.

How her words pulled at my heart, filled the crevices of my mental anguish and lifted my soul from the abyss of darkness and despair. Gone was the grief over lost friendships and failed relationships and misunderstandings. I now understood that people loved me to the best of their knowledge and ability including you. I understood that you would never understand the way in which I loved you and others. I loved you then, I love you still. All who entered and exited my life, by choice, or by no fault of their own, as American poet E. E. Cummings writes. I carry you in my heart.