Beneath the roaming homeless stars

February, 16, 2010 is looming. Our 30th wedding anniversary. My 30th marriage anniversary. I'm still in love with her, despite everything. But that does not have the same meaning that it did one year ago, or 30 years ago. A year ago was the end of a long ending to our long relationship, frayed threads barely binding the face to face fabric. So much time together, so many connections that cannot be portrayed, my private recollections. I have much in the way of feelings I cannot share here, conflicted, private. Some I can, you can relate from your life. Grief, a sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, sorrow, remorse. Longing. Sublime miscellanea.

She used to point out older couples, silver hair and faltering steps. "That'll be us", she would say. I was at the park today and it was rough observing the several couples in their seventies and eighties ambling around the paths. No, not us.

There's no point in blaming "the disease". There's no point in blaming anything. Her touch is gone. Wandering beneath these crazy stars. Blame them? For what? That she let go, or that she couldn't hold on? That I couldn't? "Never let me go." Our great promise.


The current Esquire magazine (March, 2010) has quite an article on and interview with movie critic Roger Ebert. Ebert has been suffering from cancer and in 2006 had his jaw removed, still he writes on. The article's author states, "Roger Ebert is no mystic, but he knows things we don't know." And he quotes Ebert's blog....

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris....

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Where am I now? Lingering, the meanings still unfold. Daily, new signs, new surfaces on familiar things. Familiar things, still holding me. The gifts she gave to me each day sit on my window sill. Her squint behind the sunglasses, and so all bright afternoon light brings her there. I find beautiful sorrow and true joy in her legacy. I recall her love, her heart. Never let you go.