Love and Loss

I've been thinking a lot about love and loss this week, due in part to the calendar flipping to May.  Tomorrow, May 2, marks the 20th "anniversary" of my father's passing - hardly seems possible it has been 20 years.  Being the first born, and being a female, I became and, in some ways still am, a "Daddy's Girl".  We shared several common interests, one of which was a fascination with the newspaper business, particularly the actual printing process.  My first job was proofreading at the same newspaper where he worked, and I dearly loved sneaking down to the press room when time came to "roll the presses"!  How I loved the sound of those presses running despite the loudness of the noise.  He would see me there and grin that absolutely wonderful grin of his and there was just a magic moment between us.  While I have always been close with my mother, there was just something truly special about my relationship with my father.  I remember the night I graduated from high school (something he never got to do between economic necessity and then the war):  as he tearfully looked at my diploma, I remember saying "I would give it to you if I could" and he hugged me.  This man with only a middle school education managed, with the help of my mom, to bring up four children in a Christian home, see that they were healthy and happy, and then saw all four graduate from college (although I, as the indecisive one, managed to wait to do it until age 45, and, of course, he was there to cheer me on when I graduated).

May 10 brings another sense of loss, for that is the date, now 14 years ago, when my beloved Jim passed away.  While we knew the status of his cancer, neither of us expected it to take him quite so fast, and I still look back on the six months between the diagnosis and his death as the shortest six months of my life.  Jim (Flip) was one of a kind.  Slow of speech and slow to react, he often seemed shy or hesitant, but he was, instead, sly as a fox, thinking about every word before he said it.  He was great at detail and observation, which made him really good at his job. He worked long, hard hours and was a natural caretaker, whether it was taking care of his family or his yard or his garden, which he dearly loved.  While he was not one given to public or outward displays of affection, he was a truly loving man, and I miss him every day.  One thing that came out of his passing was a change in my relationship with my mother.  Now both sharing the label of "widow", we have a new bond the last 14 years.

Adding to the sense of loss is May 20, the day my beloved grandmother passed:  the woman I adored
and revered.  I think of her often now that I am a grandmother myself, and I even see a similar bond between my first-born granddaughter and me that reminds me of that relationship.  Even though I was only 10 (about the age of my oldest granddaughter) when she passed, I still think of her often.

Now, this week, I add another loss to my calendar.  The gentleman who became an important part of my life the last few years has now decided he cannot deal with the geographic distance and the lack of commitment on my part.  Citing that he is "tired of hurting", he has decided to end our relationship.  While my brain logically understands the situation, my heart is broken.  We had a wonderful, loving friendship that lasted several years, and I hardly know how to get through a day without talking to him.

It is said that to open yourself to love is to open yourself to vulnerability and pain.  I think of the Garth Brooks' song "The Dance", in which he states that even if he had known at the start how it all would end, he still would not have missed the dance.   I have had some loving dance partners, and I would not have missed their dances, even if there was eventual pain.