"So, why do you believe that Ed is the only person who ever has, or could love you?" Beth, a pastor and spiritual counselor posed this question to me several months ago, after I'd invited her to read my blog to learn more about Ed and my life since his death.
(I met Beth several years ago after visiting the church she pastored with my friend Ruth. We'd always intended to connect concerning our common spiritual inclinations, but life--and love--intervened. After Ed's death, I could not separate any aspect of my life, particularly not spirituality, from my loss. So when we finally were able to meet, Beth asked if she could share her observations with me.)
Beth's question prompted a wave of images from ages past; I offered a few highlights as justification, but found myself stunned by the implications of her probing. Was I building a monument out of Ed and his love for me because I honestly believed that no one else really loved me at all?
When I recollect the experiences that most shaped my perspective of love, one person in particular almost always resurfaces: my first close male friend, Lee Allan,whom I met my junior year of high school. Weeks before, I'd transferred out of the Catholic school I'd attended since kindergarten to the local public high school and I was completely overwhelmed and incredibly lonely (though not lonely enough to return to the familiar ache I'd left behind.) Lee had also transferred from his small Mississippi hometown and somehow we befriended each other.
It wouldn't be true to say that he was a boyfriend, since our relationship was platonic. (Lee was gay.) However, I very much loved him for many years. Lee was the first boy to ever tell me he loved me and in retrospect I did erect a monumental tribute to the soulful exchanges of affection that solidly stood for years after we'd outgrown each other.
We exchanged many cards and letters, photographs and small tokens. One summer afternoon in 1992, a "Thinking of You Today" card arrived for me, with the following message written inside:
I wanted to let you know that I'm thinking about you. Always keep near to your heart and mind that there is someone somewhere who's thinking about you! Take care of yourself. Go to the beach one afternoon and just let nature teach you the value of love and strength. In this crazy world it's hard to be yourself, but first you have to find yourself. That takes strength. Maybe the fact that someone loves you will add some extra strength. Always, always remember that I love you!!
In retrospect, I recall my reaction to this card being somewhat similar to my response to former best friend D. when she first expressed such affection towards me. But secretly I basked in its tenderness. Over seventeen years later I still keep this card in a special place and consider it one of my life's treasures. The ink hasn't yet faded, though I haven't called on Lee's love for strength in quite some time.
As a teenager and younger adult, I believed Love to be some grand design--ornate and stately, yet also subtle. So it was always either above or behind me, something I had to strain and stress to grab hold of, or something that danced in my peripheral vision only to disappear every time I turned around.
For all his meaningful gifts to me, Lee in his own way perpetuated this illusive understanding. He had two best friends, Nicole and Jason, and he seduced me with tales of their friendship, the dissolution of all walls and borders between them. I longed to feel part of a unit, longed to be able to share all of myself with friends I could trust. But though I tried, it never felt real with Lee, nor with D. and the others I called by friendship's name.
On some level I held my inability to connect against those closest to me; Lee and I eventually called its quits in part because I could never sync my feelings with our reality. The last time we spoke though, about ten years ago, I was dismayed to learn that he had lost touch with both Nicole and Jason; there are walls and borders that are impenetrable after all.
Were there walls between Ed and me? At thirty-three I was a far cry from the solitary, frightened girl that first loved Lee; Ed, for his part, had his own life fears and reluctances. I don't think we expected love to be like we imagined it (or avoided it) at seventeen. On some level I still saw love as a star in the heavens. But, though it may sound overly sentimental, Ed and our relationship,for the first time in my life, offered me wings.
From grief's perspective, I can accept that losing Ed so uniquely early in our courtship may prompt me to adorn his every action with a veneer more appropriate for angels than mortal men. I would not be as inclined to trust my own understanding had Ed and I not, both privately and as a couple, explored these feelings and meanings while he was yet alive.
When I survey the landscape of my life, I note that it exhibits a very singular, atypical design. The pattern of Ed's life was even more distinctive because his uncanny contours were intentional. At seventeen, Ed first ran away from home via the Appalachian trail; though he didn't have a real plan, his short-lived (at that time) bid for freedom ignited a desire that lingered from that day entirely through his last afternoon on earth.
By nineteen, Ed was deliberately homeless--a short-order chef by day, a connoiseur of human experience the rest of the time. At thirty, he was a trucker, living dot to dot. By random design, after pulling his last haul, Ed wandered from Alaska to Denver, via advertisements in a Boulder newspaper. (When I first learned the formula Ed used to make those particular decisions, I pretty much knew I'd found my man.)
In contrast, my idiosyncrasies were neither purposeful nor pursued. I told Ed once that I considered myself a reluctant nonconformist. I never wanted to be different, really--I just couldn't work out the laws of normalcy. Though I entered my wandering phase quite a bit later than Ed, when I did break out of my shell, I scuttled about 900 miles away from home (to Fayetteville, North Carolina) in my first adventure, then two years later leapt about 7000 miles (to Fukui, Japan) where I taught for several satisfying years.
Regardless of how we came to know ourselves though, both Ed and I developed unusual ways of shaping and understanding of the world around us. As well, we lived that understanding out of the the usual order.
So, at thirty-three and forty-seven, after years left to our own unique devices (most likely alone), we both had the perspective to appreciate the gift of love as we stumbled over it while, ironically, doing very typical, ordinary things. Once our discovery became obvious, we couldn't help savoring our good fortune.
Often I said to Ed, "What do you do when you find the thing you always knew you'd been looking for?" What do you do when you wake up to find the dream true and alive, everything you'd always hoped for within your grasp without straining? In my case, the answer came back that I should honor and bless it, then let it go when it's time comes. But there is no denying that what Ed and I discovered in each other was as real and unique as the innerworkings of our individual lives.
But what was so significant about Ed's love that it prompted my spiritual advisor to remark that my writings read like I'd never known any love at all before finding him?