Unable are the loved to die~Emily Dickinson

Unable are the Loved to die For Love is Immortality, Nay, it is Deity—

Unable they that love—to die For Love reforms Vitality Into Divinity.

~Emily Dickinson

I’ve always loved this little poem.  It’s given me comfort in the death of loved ones on several occasions.  But it doesn’t completely remove the sting of death.  Death is cruel.  Death is painful.  Sometimes for the ones who go, but always for the ones who are left behind.

In the wake of losing a loved one, it pains me to see the hurt in those who loved him the most, knew him the best.  When I lost my Grandma, I felt like a piece of me died, never to be returned.  I can still hear her calling my name, talking, telling me stories.  I can still feel the softness of her skin and see her smile when I close my eyes.  And I know that one day it will be me.  I know that, if I’m lucky, that one day I’ll be the old woman and they will have to say good-bye to me.

I know that part of life is death.  But it seems cruel and unusual nonetheless.  I watch the news and see mothers, fathers, and babies, gone before their time.  And it makes me wonder What is the point?  What are we really meant to do in this short time?  Life IS short.  I’m at least, if not more than halfway through mine.  And it’s been wonderful, and awful, and amazing, and unbearable.  But sometimes I wonder What am I really meant to do?  Is this all that there is?

I look at my children, and I know that it is so much more.  The promise, the expectation, the anticipation is all wrapped up in their little hearts and minds.  And like all loving parents, I am hopeful, so hopeful that their life will be so much more than mine.   And then I think that I’ve gotten it at least partly figured out. 

Then I think about people who suffer, truly suffer, without the reward of hope. I wonder what the purpose of their life was, and I hope that they knew before they went. 

Death makes you think of the damndest things. 

I think that the cruelest thing about death is the bond that is ultimately broken between those who go and those who stay.  When you truly love someone and they leave you, it becomes a chasm so big in your soul that you wonder if it can ever be filled.  And while you know that those who go wouldn’t want you to suffer, you can’t help but suffer anyways.  Because that’s how it feels without them. 

Empty, lonely, terrible, sad.  You miss their essence, their love, their spirit, and everything about them that made them special and endeared them to you.  And when they are your confidante, your protector, your everything, it’s difficult to imagine that you can ever be whole without them. 

I imagine that my gift to my grandmother is my children, my life, and everytime that I laugh or think of her.  I have missed her during some of the most difficult times of my life, wishing that I could feel her arms around her or hear her tell me she loved me.  I know that she could have made everything right with the world again, had she been here. 

I regretted every time I didn’t see her when I should have and that I didn’t love her more when she was here with me.  It’s only then I understand that she is always with me in my heart, in my soul, in my mind, in my very being and as long as I think of her she will always live on.  

My sons never really knew her, but they know that I loved her and they know the stories that I tell them about her.  And they know how much she would have loved them too.  

Unable are the Loved to die For Love is Immortality, Nay, it is Deity—

Unable they that love—to die For Love reforms Vitality Into Divinity.

 

R.I.P~Jack and Jean Qualey, Bob Walton, Alberta and George Walton, Clarence and Frances Campbell, Jill Rendel, Colin Kelly, Kristina and Kayla Harding, Ed Bryner, Donna Moran, Mickey Tober, Donald Walton, Christopher Ashley, Emily Glaser, Merikay Walton