loved-one

People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes. The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it__ like missing water. Every day, you notice the person__ absence more.

Just because the ones we love die (or fall out of our lives or disappear from the spinning of our spheres) does not mean we love them any less or erase them from the deeply etched lines of the maps we have traveled.We find ways to keep them alive in spirit, with the brutal knowing that they are gone in body.We can remember; we can feel & this can all be grief & it can all be love, too.

And there's you. You're just beautiful. Effortlessly beautiful, like nature. You have the trinity of beauty: a beautiful heart, a beautiful mind, and a beautiful soul.

Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon and a favorite author of mine. He writes the most beautiful and compassionate descriptions of his patients and the human dramas they confront. In his book Letters to a Young Doctor, he said that most young people seem to be protected for a time by an imaginary membrane that shields them from horror. They walk in it every day but are hardly aware of its presence. As the immune system protects the human body from the unseen threat of harmful bacteria, so this mythical membrane guards them from life-threatening situations. Not every young person has this protection, of course, because children do die of cancer, congenital heart problems, and other disorders. But most of them are shielded__nd don__ realize it. Then, as years roll by, one day it happens. Without warning, the membrane tears, and horror seeps into a person__ life or into the life of a loved one. It is at this moment that an unexpected theological crisis presents itself.

If I can__ be your love, then let me be a simple brooch so I may rest a while against your chest. If I can__ be your love, then let me be a forgotten coin so I may rest a while against your thigh. If I can__ be your love, then let me be an unlit cigarette so I may rest a while in between your lips. If I can__ be your love, then let me at least remain in these words so I may rest a while in your thoughts.

The first time I heard you laugh, I only wanted to say funny things so you would always be laughing. You know what happens to chocolate when you leave it out in the sun? I__ that unfortunate chocolate and you, you are the laughing sun. For this reason, I am offering myself to you not as a martyr or some selfless fool, but as a self-indulgent moth who actively pursues the light without much fear for the flame. The moth who revels in the heat and declares: Burn me.

There are no more surprises and shocks in life, so that I watch the flame without agitation. For me the greatest reality is this and nothing else... Nothing else will worry or interest me in life hereafter.

I am certain that I__ not the only one who would like to have a do-over on an interaction with a loved one.