Love feels big and all that matters.

A long time back, there was a winter that broke me. Having left the country of my birth, my little heart knew the sensation of loss and loneliness…but that winter  taught me that loss was a physical sensation. A cavity that opens up your chest and, if you’re like me, you fall in and get lost in for sometime.

That winter my friend went away was so bitterly cold. So cold it hurt. And it was a good thing. It was like the earth knew I couldn’t bare things to be warm without my friend by my side. It was good. It was like an acknowledgement the world was a colder place without him in it. It was good - because it felt right that it hurt to breathe.

Winter always reminds me of my friend, taken so very soon. Winter always gets me thinking about loss. And in the last little while friends of mine have lost beloved parents, lost precious babies, and potentially, Man and I are staring down the barrel of losing someone dear to us.

It’s been 17 years. My friend has been gone as long as he was here. And I love him as much as the day he left. It’s clear after all this time that time can’t measure love or even fade it. It’s clear time is no measure of the impact of a life.

A much-loved friend of mine lost her mum, just before Mothers Day. At the funeral, even in her natural grace and composure, her grief was bending her physical frame. She’s always been wise and beautifully articulate, and just the other day, talking about the loss of her mama, she simply and stunningly said, “Love feels big and all that matters.”

It echoed in my heart and in my thoughts of my friend passed. Indeed. Love feels big and all that matters. I thought of my friend. Gone as long as he was here. 1 hour, 1 day, 100 days, 100 years – the incredible gift of a human being, ‘THEM’, is felt and loved. Felt and acknowledged on some unseen level, outside of time. And it remains, even when THEY don’t.

All this time friend. You are still remembered. You are still missed. You are still loved. I feel like love is our link to that part of us that is outside time. That part of us that feels eternal. Love feels big and all that matters.

I struggle to make sense of the enormous loss that is part of life, and some people experience more than seems right (no loss seems right to me, but somehow it's part of our human experience). The unbearable heartache of losing a child. I crumble at the thought and there are people in my world who have bravely endured it. I know the day will come when I farewell my parents and I wonder, how will I stand under the crushing grief of losing the people who brought me into the world?

I’ve been listening to Phosphorescent. Don’t you love people who can find words for feelings ? Like you don't know exactly what they mean, but you know exactly what they mean? I do. He has this one line…

“you say, oh, you’ll spin this heartache into gold.”….

And that’s gotta be the point right? For all my friends, for any who read this living with loss, for myself..... know that is my steady hope for us all....That Love will somehow, spin the heartache into gold. That, and Love feels big and all that matters. 

♥

ps: Like I said, in Winter, so many thoughts of my friend fill my mind. I love Ed Sheeran (which must make me deeply unoriginal, because so does, um everyone).  But this song has been my winter anthem. 

I was 16, and for ages I carried his photo with me, and even now, I still keep a photo of my friend, from 17 years ago, tucked away in my cupboard, holding him close until our eyes meet. 

Just listen.

For you, M. 

xxC

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

-            e.e cummings.