SeaHeart

Yesterday, I learned that a beloved, cherished friend has cancer.

I don't think I've ever been truly shocked before--but I was yesterday. Everything went numb. I couldn't feel anything for the longest time. When I finally woke up, I cried, and then everything flooded in--I could feel ten times as much. A lot of it was very sad things, but in the midst of that maelstrom, there was this glowing, pulsing point that has grown steadier and steadier in the hours since I was told. It's so powerful, in fact, that it seems to have encompassed all that I am.

And I thought I'd share that here:

Nothing in this entire world matters, save for one thing: Love.

It's trite and Hallmark card sounding, but have you ever thought that the most obvious truth and secret in life would be the most pervasive, obvious thing? You know that love matters--we all know that love matters. But you can't truly understand how much it matters, perhaps, until you're staring death in the face. It rears up, cold and dark and towering, and everyone gets there eventually. In this season of the encroaching longest night of the year, our mortality is the most obvious. We are, all of us, going to leave this world, and none of us has any true idea what might come after. We have faith and we have hope and we have love, and out of all of these, love is the tangible creature that makes our lives whole.

I thought about how much that person has touched my life. I thought about how much I love that person, how deeply and fiercely and completely I love that person, and then I thought about all of the people I love, and this great, pulsing certainty filled me.

We're poor beyond belief. Many things are sad and small in our lives, but none of that matters. Jenn and I have one another, and we are completely in love, true love, and that is all that matters. I know some of the most amazing, brilliant, beautiful people on the face of this planet, am blessed by their friendships and support and light in my life, and if I die a pauper, none of that ever really mattered. Because I would still have those moments where I was assured that I was loved. And that was all that was real.

And love is all that matters.

Faced with all of the sadness of the last few months, I am ashamed to say that I had forgotten that. I had forgotten, when things were so deeply dark, that things could change, that I was cherished, that I was surrounded by people that did not measure my worth with how much I owed to the universe, but how much I had changed that universe.

I have some of the best friends in the world. People who passionately believe that I can do great things. People who laugh at my totally lame jokes, people who have given me food when I was hungry, a shoulder when I cried, a hug and warmth when I was frozen. I am loved. I. Am. Loved.

I have no idea when I'm going to die. Goddess willing, it will be when I am a very old, intolerably eccentric lady who still talks about sex far, far, far too much. But if it isn't, I want the days of my life to be filled with reckless love, love enough to overcome all of the darkness any human experiences.

Love enough to remember, always, that this was all that ever mattered.

You know that I love recklessly. You know that I appreciate and cherish my friends. I tell you, often, how much you matter to me. But everything is sharper now. Clear. I know that I get by with a little help from my friends.

And love.

Whether I get sixty years to spend with my dear one who has cancer, or six months, I will spend every day loving them. Whether I get sixty years or six months with you, my dear ones, I spend every day loving you.

I've been working so piteously hard this year. Every moment I would not exchange, but in the coming year, I will continue to work hard but give myself more gentle time. More easy time. More time that I can spend with those people who make my life beautiful.

You.

This has been the oddest, darkest, hardest, most beautiful, vibrant, jubilant, love-filled year of my life. I have no words for all I've experienced, all of the pain I have felt, all of the deep rooted joy and love I have held.

Here's to 2012. I have so much hope for this coming year.

I wanted you to know: I love you.

~*~

I knew that in an instant anyone might die or be transformed forever, and so I vowed always, always to tell others when I loved them. Perhaps this was what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God being at hand--the only opportunity for connection was now. I wrote Christmas cards in a fervor of adolescent honesty, even confessing to Mr. Polliche, my bearded, poetry-loving English teacher, how much he meant to me. I promised myself I'd always put words to my feelings, and, no matter how sentimental it felt, I would never be ashamed. Love, I decided, exists in the present and should be shared recklessly.

~ from Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Spiritual Memoir by Elizabeth Andrew

When I was alive, I believed--as you do--that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls...

~ from The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle