We

I am writing this for me. I’m writing to try to make sense of what makes absolutely no sense at all. I woke up in the middle of the night and the first though in my mind was “I have to let him go”.

But just to think about it makes me feel extremely distraught, to write those words an anguish rises in my soul, crushing my spirit. I know that to be true, that I have in some way to let go of him, but I am not able to do so, I cannot do so, I don’t want to do so.

I dreamed of him last night. In the dream he was younger, and I had to go somewhere I had never been before. He was helping me to get ready, making arrangements, contacting people that could help me along the way. But I knew he wasn’t coming with me.

When I suddenly woke up the sense of his presence was so strong I thought I would see him when I opened my eyes. But of course as soon I did it, everything dissipated. I wish I could have stayed in that dream longer, I wish I could held on to the sense of his presence — as ethereal as it was. I wanted to linger with him a little longer, I wish I could remember the dream more vividly.

I guess everyone who dreams of lost loved ones wish the same, they don’t want to wake up from good dreams, they don’t want to let go.

I weep, I sob in fact, as I write these words.

I remember when we made love under the stars, on the roof of the half abandoned army building we used for ministry. He took me up there, where he had laid a blanked and some pillows. We laid there under the blankets for a long time, watching the sky and the lights of the rushing cars in the far distant highway. We were so full of love for each other, so full of hope, so full of good dreams for our future.

We had no idea then, that we would loose our first baby. We had no idea then that we would travel the world, preaching the gospel and encouraging people by sharing our stories of suffering and redemption.

We had no idea then that we would move to New Zealand, that I would never see my grandmother again, that we would have two daughters, that we would be so scared when one of them almost died, that his Dad would get cancer.

We had no idea then, that he would have a major injury and because of that have to leave the ministry he loved, nor that he would have to have two operations on his spine and, nor that I also would have to have two operations, let alone that he would go through a terrible depression while we struggled financially to the point of our marriage almost collapsing.

We had no idea then that we would have to go through a year of counselling to recover our marriage, or that it really was possible to rebuild our lives and heal our broken hearts.

We had no idea then that I would study Theology, go to Film School and become an actress, or that he would be the first one in his family to graduate with a bachelor’s degree and become a counsellor.

We had no idea then that his mother would be hit by a car in front of her home and die before the ambulance arrive.

We had no idea then that he would become the father figure for so many of the boys he counselled.

We had no idea that in ten years we would have hurt each other so deeply, nor that we would learn to forgive so vastly, nor that we would be more in love with each other than when we laid on top of that roof making love under the stars.

We had no idea then that he would have a heart attack and leave me when he was 50.

We had no idea then that one day there would be no more WE, just I.

But I cannot let go of WE. Because without him, the me that is left is half dead, and all that we became together, all that we did together, all that we dreamed together, made me who I am. How can there be an I outside of We?

So that is why I am not able to let go, I cannot let go, I don’t want to let go.

Like the dreams I dream with him, I wish I can linger a little longer, I wish I can hold on a little tighter, I wish I can remember our lives more vividly — just like I remember making love under the stars, and falling asleep in his arms on the roof of the half abandoned army base building, watching the lights of rushing cars go by in the distant highway.