Tuesday, August 27, 2013

"The Truth Of Love In Letters..."


 "While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die."
- Leonardo da Vinci


An Allegory:  For a great long while, even for virtually the whole of his life, he had been depressed and sad about his lot. It seemed that he would never be “unalone.”  And so it was on that night, as he sat in another cold and lonely hotel room, this time in Riverside, California, that he made up his mind that it was time for the pain to end… This was not the first time he’d ever made such a decision.  As recently as on Father’s Day, just the year before, while suffering in the depths of misery about what “love” really means, he made a desperate attempt to finally give the one he loved no excuse to continue hurting his long tortured heart.  But when the beloved one, said to him, “Don’t go…” - from his hospital bed, he obeyed and turned back yet again.

But this time was different.  It was much more like the first time he sought his relief in the “Arms of the Angels.”  He was twelve or thirteen years old then, and now some thirty years later, he felt the same cold resolve to follow through on his plans to end it all, just as he did as a mere boy.  As he thought about the plans he’d worked out in his mind for at least the last seven months of his tortured existence, he knew he couldn’t go on much further, certainly not another day like the last.  When he’d last talked to the beloved one, after so many bitter disappointments, the cruelty in the voice he had once lived to hear, stretched to the breaking point the last threads of hope left in the tattered fabric of dreams that had kept him alive (but not living) for the last thirty years.

He’d written his own obituary several years ago when he was sure that this was how it would eventually end. This night, he revised it, added a few lines here and there mentioning his great love for the one who’d become a faded love turned memory. The difference this time was that he printed and neatly folded twenty copies and placed them carefully in an envelope he’d addressed to his sister back in Detroit.  He wrote her a note explaining the contents of this unexpected package:
Dear Lisa, I am sorry to presume that you will do these things for me, but I have no one else to ask.  I hope and pray that you will be strong for me and help me with these last concerns of my time here on earth.  I give you my eternal love and thanks for your willingness to see to these things for me…  Thank you.
He went on in his note to explain how he’d prearranged and paid for his funeral and where his important papers were located and how he hoped his family would remember him… He asked his sister to hold a brief memorial gathering at his home and that was what the obituaries were for.   And in the final wish of a broken heart, he asked his sister to give his ashes to that "beloved one," for he longed only to be kept under "his" bed and that would be heaven enough for him, but that if he didn’t want them, then to spread his ashes over his mother’s grave - the most sacred place they'd ever been together.

Though that night he was in the throes of his great and terrible decision, it was actually before leaving home that week that he’d set the wheels in motion for what he had in mind.   That weekend before he went to California, he’d prepared a number of notes… “Give this to William…” “I bought this for Stephen in Los Angeles, please give it to him.” “If I am dead, give everything in this drawer to ...” “My will, insurance, and bank accounts are in this file.”  He cleaned the house that in his dreams he thought would someday be "their" home, and as he wandered from room to room, he left his neatly printed notes everywhere signifying the disposition of things that had once been his treasured possessions.

Just before he left for the airport that Sunday evening, he walked through each room of the house taking a last look at all he had worked for, now labeled and cast to the realm of memories. And as he walked though the lonely house recalling through tear strained eyes the first, the few and the only happy moments of his life, he realized that they had all come in those last few years.  He remembered those moments when a lifetime of dreams seemed to come true, almost… And just then he heard the horn of his taxi in the street and as he walked towards the front door, he called out to the empty house, “I’m leaving now, Dear” even though the beloved one had not been there to hear it for many months.

During the taxi ride, the same driver who took him to the airport every week could tell something was different that day. His passenger that sunny Sunday afternoon was quieter than he usually was... he didn't talk about where he was headed to this week.  And as the driver peered into the mirror he thought he saw a tear or two fall from behind his passenger’s eyeglasses.  “Are you alright, my friend?” he asked of his regular Sunday afternoon fare… “Yes, I’m fine,” he lied, as even then he wondered if the next five days in California would finally end with the event he’d planned for so long as the sure remedy for the unbearable pain of a broken heart.

The ride to the airport somehow seemed much longer than usual, and as he looked from the window of the cab he thought of how the things he saw on this last ride would never be seen by him again.  Finally, as the cab pulled into the departures lane, he thanked his driver as he’d done every week for months. But today, he gave the driver a particularly generous tip as he wished him, "Have a good life..."  Then as he turned to enter the terminal, he thought to himself, “This is the last time I’ll do this too.”   Once aboard the plane, as it climbed into the sky turning to the west, he looked down at the city that had always been home, and knowing that he wouldn't see it again if he and cruel fate had their way in less than a week, he thought somehow the gritty, ragged city that had contained him and his pain somehow looked kinder and gentler than he'd ever seen it before.

During the long flight to the coast, he passed the time by thinking through all the details of his plans for the next five days in California - the last five days of his life... He thought a great deal about his work. Work had always sustained him. He would be completing the project he had been working on all month and that had helped him to hold on to life for as long as he had. As he saw the mountains passing silently below the window he gazed out of, his head was swimming with a million thoughts as he felt the deep despair that had been closing in on him since New Year's tighten its grip on his troubled heart.  It had been just after New Years Day when he had last seen the beloved one at DTW where he cried in his arms at the gate as he left the beloved one in Detroit to join this project in California that this week would end and with it, his last reasons for remaining in a life so unbearable.

Although he had tried to drift off to sleep, he felt ill and so he stood up to go to the restroom at the front of the plane.  When he got there, someone was already waiting and as he leaned against the bulkhead, suddenly he felt heavy and dizzy.  The next sound that he heard was that of the flight attendants asking him, "What's your name Sir?, are you okay?" But the only thing he could say was the beloved one's name, "Stephen." And it was then that he realized that his 200 pound frame was lying limp on the floor of the cabin as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Suddenly he was startled to life again by the pungent odor of an ammonia ampule being held under his nose by a fellow passenger, a female doctor.  She said, "You'll be ok, Stephen" "Just lay here for a moment, you passed out."  As he nodded his head in understanding, he didn't feel the strength to correct the doctor and the flight attendants about who he was, and who Stephen was.

After a few moments, he felt stronger and wanted to get up from the cabin floor.  The doctor and two of the male flight attendants helped him up and back to his seat in first class.  The doctor came and sat next to him and asked him some questions about his health history and took his pulse. She said, "I'm sure it was nothing, but you should go to an emergency room and get checked out as soon as we land in L.A."  He said he would as he thanked her for rendering aid, even though he knew he wouldn't follow her advice and was even then silently hoping that perhaps he'd just had a heart attack or some other complication that would take him away from his pain. After a few minutes, the kind doctor returned to her own seat and after a while, he began to feel better, at least physically, if not mentally.

When the flight landed at LAX and the plane rolled to a stop at the gate, as the doors were being opened, one of the flight attendants came over to him and told him there was an airport attendant with a wheelchair on the jetway waiting to take him to the hospital. But he told her that wouldn't be necessary and he walked off the plane and past the the attendant and the wheelchair with his briefcase clutched at his side.  Although he was a little unsteady on his feet, when he finally reached the luggage claim, several of the passengers from his flight came over and asked if he was ok and if he needed any help.  He thanked them all and insisted that he was fine.  As he watched the bags going by on the carousel he felt slightly disoriented and light-headed again, but somehow he managed to collect his luggage and he made his way to the rental cars to begin his drive into the Inland Empire and sunny Riverside, California.

On the sixty mile drive out to the Inland Empire, he didn't really notice the sunny warm weather which was quite a change from the cold frosty winter snow he'd left behind in Detroit. Instead he noticed every time he saw a Jeep Cherokee. When he did, in his mind he spoke to the beloved one as that make and model reminded him of the Jeep the beloved one had driven and of the many times that the beloved one held his hand as they together drove along.  In a short while, he had arrived in Riverside at the hotel that had been his workweek home for last month. The clerk at the counter welcomed him back, but that day, he was somber and simply took his key and walked to the elevator without even taking note of the floor he was going to. Once inside the elevator when the door closed behind him, a tear fell from his eye as he looked to see the room number written on the key card jacket, for even that reminded him of the beloved one - it was his birthday - 1004.

The next morning, somehow he'd gotten through the night and managed to stir himself from a fitful sleep, shaved and dressed for the short ride to the client site.  As he walked to the lobby to meet up with his colleague, it all seemed so meaningless to him. Life without the beloved one seemed unbearable, even for just a few more days. In those last few weeks as he worked with the client and their employees on the project, he found it harder to maintain the façade of “normalcy” that he’d struggled to hold together for the many months since the Beloved One had gone. Being a management consultant was a dream job he’d have loved once upon a time, but now that it was his reality, the adventure of travel and the challenges that went with it were little more than a distraction from the pain and the deep anguish that grew within him with each day and every lonely night that passed.

For weeks on end, every night upon returning to his empty hotel room, and again each morning before leaving it, on his knees he'd pray... He’d remember the promises of the Beloved One, the promises that had given him so much hope for a happy life and he'd ask God to help those promises be real. Yet it was those same unfulfilled promises that had ultimately destroyed him and his dreams. But each day between the morning and the night, he worked hard to be an “agent for change” in his client's company… And as he saw his efforts have an effect on the people he was working with, he couldn’t help but question in his heart why it was that he could not change the bitter, lonely darkness that dwelled and churned deep within his own soul.  Yet despite all his prayers and heartache, there were times that it seemed to him that his plight was going unseen and unheard by God, and so thus began the last week of his life.

On that following morning as he stirred from another restless night’s sleep, he wondered how he’d drag himself from bed again and put a smile on his deeply drawn face before reaching the hotel lobby.  He followed all his routines, though nothing seemed routine anymore… As he shaved and dressed, he spoke aloud to the grim reflection of the broken-hearted man that stared back at him from the mirror…  As he looked into the reflection of his gaunt face, he seemed to hear himself saying, “Just a few more days and then you can go home.”  Then he'd question himself again, “Which home?”  Yet, even as he spoke to himself, looking deeply into his own eyes, he could also hear the silent screams stirring from deep within, and the intense pain in his heart helped him know that it was his home in heaven that he was thinking of.  Nevertheless, he was determined to complete his last project, so again he fell to his knees to pray and then he dried his eyes and stepped into the light of one more day.  It was his last Tuesday to endure.

Wednesday came and went and was very much like Monday and Tuesday. And it was on Thursday morning as he stood before the mirror yet again that he saw the horror of the pain that he felt deep in his heart and it was also then that he knew with certainty that he’d follow through with his plan to bring his life and his pain to an end. The absence of the Beloved One had left him with no hope and because he loved this man with all his heart, he knew he could no longer bear living without him…  Up to that point, there had been nothing that he would not do for the Beloved One.  And so as he sat in silence, he thought of the Beloved One, and in a haze of pain and irrational thought, he said to himself, “Surely he must be feeling similar pain being apart from me; If I am dead, then his pain will end too.”  And thus he finally had a reason strong enough to overcome his own fears of death and dying.

By late Thursday afternoon as he and his colleague finished the last of their work, conducted their exit interviews and said their last goodbyes to the client and their employees, He decided not only in his heart, but also in his mind and in his soul that that next day, Friday, the 1st of February would be his last day in his long tortured world…

Later that Thursday evening, he thought to himself, “The last few days have passed quickly.”  He’d worked hard and he was satisfied that he’d done the best he could do as the consulting project he’d worked on all month came to a close that afternoon.  As the painful memories of his life streamed past his mind’s eye, it was all he could do to hold back the tears that wanted so badly to flow in great streams.  As they left the clients, he was unusually quiet as he drove his colleague to the Ontario airport.   Sensing something was very different this day, as he got out of the car, his colleague asked if he was alright… He said, “I’m okay, I’ll be much better tomorrow” and with that he bid him a safe flight home to the joys of love and family that he himself was now convinced would never be his own.

Finally alone, the tears flowed freely as he drove back to the hotel in Riverside.   He was utterly distracted by his thoughts and plans for that last night.  More than once, as he found himself in the midst of Southern California rush hour traffic, he was nearly involved in a “fender-bender.”  But when these near misses occurred he lamented that even if they had happened, there was not enough speed involved to even hope for being killed.  Thankfully for the other drivers on the highway, he got to his destination without incident.

Thursday night seemed a strange night indeed. He was surprised to find that as he got to the hotel, he was actually hungry. He’d not had a real appetite for weeks… food and eating was just a mind numbing distraction, a necessity. But when alone in his world, it was little more than “something to do.”  But this night, as he sat in his lonely hotel room, he found that he truly savored the burger and fries he'd bought at the restaurant next door.  As he enjoyed every French fry and even the crumbs at the bottom of the bag, he thought to himself, “It must be true, condemned men do enjoy their last meal.”  He finished his last supper, and then he went to work making the preparations for his last day.  As he cleared the desk and set up his laptop and portable printer, he noted to himself that virtually everything he was doing, he was doing for the last time in his life.

With a deep breath, he began to type... he was writing to his beloved the final "love letter," the last thoughts of his troubled mind and tortured heart...  That next day, he would be seeking the angels at 37,000 feet.


"The gods conceal from man the happiness of death, that they may endure life."

- Lucan


"Fear Eats the Soul"


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