I sit beside the fire and think of times there were before. . .

Dear Aaron,  

Today is Labour Day. The end of summer in some ways. And the start of Semester all those years ago. I remember riding down in a Summit van with you and Elizabeth, and Noelle... All of us carefree and loving life.

Today the September breeze is rustling through the trees, the nuthatches are calling their repetitive little sound, and there are Colorado peaches and homegrown zucchini on my kitchen counter. The weather is autumnal, reminding me the seasons are starting to shift (so thankful!), yet there is much life bursting out in flavours and sounds and colours. The persistent scrub oak saplings out the kitchen window are nearly bleached yellow with the sun shining through them. There are strawberries waiting for me to make them into preserves, to go alongside the fried apple preserves I made last night.

Today is Labour Day, mellow with sunshine and life—and full of memories. Seven years ago on Labour Day it was your last day under the sunshine. And though time and marriage have shifted many things in me, it does not mean I don't grieve. That I don't think of you every day. Especially today. 

This year I started the Hobbit journey a little early and am nearly to "The Breaking of the Fellowship," though it is only the beginning of September... Though I'm familiar with Bilbo's poem from the Fellowship, I didn't realise how fitting it would be for today until I reread it this morning: 

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
 
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
 
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
 
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

"I think . . . Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were," in so many ways sums up much of our time at Semester. Though there were also "still so many things [we had] never seen," we got to see so many amazing things together. And for that, I'm grateful. 

The Lord is kind, my friend. I wish you had been able to fight the good fight and continue in the Land of the living, knowing His goodness through your own eyes. I wonder what songs and stories and poems you would have dreamed up... I hope you're saving all of those you're working on now to share with us when we get to the Kingdom.

"I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door."

We Are Once In a Lifetime

Dear Aaron,

Did you think I forgot? Because I didn't. I called your mom on 3 September. Last weekend I hiked around the area where I carved your name into a fallen tree five years ago. The Switchfoot playlist that gave words to my aching has been on repeat all month. Tears have definitely rimmed my eyes on repeat, too.

I was re-reading some of your thoughts/poems earlier this month... You had good thoughts, friend. You had good taste in lyrics. In poetry. And goodness knows you had more patience for certain literature than I do. 

You know that dark blue plaid shirt of yours? It is ringed with holes now... I sleep with it every night I'm not travelling. There is something comforting in its tangibility—like there is with your letters. I just like seeing them, holding them, reading them. 

You left an indelible mark on me, Aaron Eugene Hennig. The mark of friendship. The mark of one who has known a similar sorrow and tried to walk with me through my own, even when you didn't always know how, and I didn't always recognise your efforts. 

You know what I do recognise? You were once in a lifetime. My ticket to Oxford and Alaska and Rhode Island. My ticket to a land of imagination and Beauty, reminding me there is Hope—and He is the Anchor for our souls. 

Do you have any idea how mad I am that you went ahead of me? Or how much it hurt to have you leave, both five years ago and all those years ago after I came to Alaska? You walked out of our friendship because I was me and not someone else. Or maybe because that 'someone else' was taking up too much space inside of you. 

Do you remember writing about how some people take up more space inside than you wanted to give them? I remember, not only because I've re-read your letters so much in the past handful of years, but because I understand that feeling from the inside. Some people want to take up more space than you have to give...and some people that you have vast treasures of storeroom for don't want to take up much (or any) space inside of you. We can't always choose these things.

What are you waiting for?

The day is gone. . .

I said, I'm waiting for dawn

...

Every now and then I see you dreaming

Every now and then I see you cry

Every now and then I see you reaching

Reaching for the other side*

Your reached it, friend. Aslan's own country. The other side from here. The end (which was only the beginning!) of your dreams. You found the womb of the dawn you were waiting for. The mental clarity you were reaching for with fingers wiggling, straining to reach just a little more.

May all of your days shine brightly

And your nights be blessed with peace

Wherever you lay down to sleep

And all things are made good

For those who believe

May you grow from a seed

Into a strong, fruitful tree**

___

Aaron, you are a tree, my friend. 

Not "you were"—somehow, you still are.

. . .

*Switchfoot "Red Eyes"

**Josh Garrels "Benediction"

Happy Summer

A photo collage of July life...

 Easter lilies (in July!) as tall as my shoulder! 

Baseball game with my small group...

...and Nick =]

Lonesome Lake with Tosha...

...and Lynnette!

Dawn's birthday! I love these women. :)

I'm missing a few things... Loads of Bible Project podcasts... Dinner conversations and a hike with Matt when he was in town... Lemonade and front-porch sittin' with Jack... Small group gatherings at the Henderson's home... Hugs at church and tea with my Lauren-neighbour... Lots of conversations on the tailgate of a FedEx truck... And way too many hours inside my office/basement—though some were with Elli, and she makes office hours enjoyable, even in the basement. ;)

I Shall but Love Thee Better after Death. . .

Dear Aaron,

Why do I still write to you? The last note I received from you was seven years ago next month. Seven. Years. And of those seven years, you have been gone two years, four months, and two days. 

I suppose I write for the reason I always did. . .you are my beloved friend. Reading your letters has taught me much, both then and now as I re-read them. And I always felt like writing to you in particular brought my thoughts together in ways that didn't happen with anyone else. Oh, I wasn't brilliant or particularly deep, but when I put pen to paper for you, it was like all the synapses snapped, all the thoughts aligned, all the pieces came together into a full picture. Writing to you made my world bigger, my thoughts clearer...it made me a deeper, richer person than I was. That has never happened in such a way with any other correspondent-friend. 

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.”

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

Perhaps it sounds a little selfish, but I think the heart of Miss Browning's above lines is this: you are such an inspiring person that those who are given the gift of truly knowing you can't help but become better because of you. 

She's right, you know. So many times I have mourned the loss of your friendship, and then the loss of your life—and in that, I've mourned the loss of part of myself. Some part of myself was diminished when you shut me out of your life—and that part of me died with you, Aaron. I grieve that the world is a poorer place without you, you generous soul. I grieve that your family keenly feels your absence. And I grieve the loss of beauty, cheer, and depth I once had when we were so regularly in touch. 

There have been persons in my life who seemed to call out the worst in me; I did not like myself when I was around them. My family and friends didn't like who I was when such persons were in my life. But you weren't like that. You called my mind and heart to soar upward; to look toward God's Beauty, reflected in nature and poetry and music. You inspired (breathed life into) me to want to read more, think more, live more, experience more. I love the part of me that you brought out. I mourn that part of myself, now buried with you. And I eagerly await the renewal and resurrection of that part of me in the New Kingdom. It will be refined and redeemed... To know you again, not as we did, but in a much fuller way, will bring out a facet in me (and you!) that we only had a glimpse of during the years we were friends.

I can only pray that my own friendship, such as it was, inspired you and made your life somehow better, friend. And I pray that in the New Kingdom we will continually draw out the good in one another, calling one another "Further up, and further in!"

As I read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's gentle lines again, I realised why I still write to you, Aaron. I still write to you because I still love you. I will always love you. I love who you were. I love who you inspired and encouraged me to be. And I can't wait to get to learn to love you anew in the Kingdom Coming. It will be a different love there—a love pure and untainted by selfishness or any fallen thing. Loving you in the Kingdom will be something glorious that our earthly friendship could only catch a glimmer of.

I love you, friend. I love much of what you love. I love your sincerity and earnestness. I love your love for Beauty. I love your silliness and exuberance (from ringing bells to quoting poetry on tables and playing guitar until people hollered at you). I love your generosity. I love your unquenchable thirst for wonder and for knowledge. I just love YOU. And I miss you. Oh, friend, I miss you. So. Much.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Staying. . .

He shuffled and looked down at his feet, "You're not going to like what I have to say." I was standing in my office with a sinking feeling in my heart. How many times had I stood in this exact place with someone standing there, telling me they were moving on to something else? A dozen times? Twenty? One year ten people left the place I work. Another year six people were let go due to budget cuts. Here and there people have retired or moved on to pursue this or that wonderful thing and I'm left standing in the basement. This week I had this conversation with not one but two people. The second one hit harder, as I wasn't expecting it at all. It was suddenly the last day I'd see someone. Someone I've seen almost daily for four or five years. 

So, here I am again, standing in my office grieving in hot, fast tears.

Don't get me wrong, I like my job. I especially like my coworkers. I like staying. . .

But I also hate staying.

Staying means that everyone else leaves. And I am tired of being left. 

Left at work while everyone else "moves on," as if to imply that working here isn't worth my time and loyalty. Left to myself while my friends get married and have children. Left on this side of eternity while people I love step into the Kingdom. 

Sometimes I think it's not worth it to care about people, they just leave you, leaving a hole where they were. Sure, sometimes you keep up with someone in spite of not being at the same job, the same church, the same neighbourhood. And sometimes it's just fine to move on and make new friends. 

And let's be honest: I've done my share of leaving. Not returning calls, texts, or emails. I don't have the time or the emotional space to keep up with everyone I've ever been friends with. I've left people who were emotionally draining. I've left jobs or churches and never looked back. Sometimes to move forward we have to leave some things, even some relationships, to memory. 

The truth is, I'm tired. I'm tired of caring, of building friendships only to lose them. Tired of acquaintances hanging on when I'm ready to move forward. . .and conversely, tired of friends leaving when I still want to grow together. Being left, yet again, is wounding. It makes me feel like there isn't any virtue in staying. Being faithful just ends up hurting. The thought of learning yet another new person at work, of befriending them and making sure they feel seen and cared for sounds exhausting right now. I don't have the heart for it. I will. . .but not today. Today I'm just sad. 

August is the Cruelest Month...

...to paraphrase T. S. Eliot. 

I rather hate the month of August. I'm physically, emotionally, and soulishly drained by this hot and crazy month. It is the hardest month at work. It is freakishly hot (making sleep difficult). And I'm out of people energy. Every summer. Then there's the added sorrow of September 3, already looming. 

But God.  God is kind to surround me with His love. With generous friends and family. 

Did you know that kindness makes hard days and weeks brighter? 

It does. 

So. Much!

A box of sunshine (sweet words, creative-cute cards, and lemon-flavoured everything) from my creative, thoughtful sister... Sent after being rather heart-disappointed.

Flowers, chocolate, and cheese from a good friend after the same hard week.

I love the colours of these flowers! Plus, they lasted two weeks. 

Surprisingly, the cheese and chocolate have lasted longer.

A thank you gift from my sweet co-worker for assisting her in shipping a lot of packages this summer. 

Here is a close-up of the necklace. . .

This was part of the theme of the summer. Have grit. Determination, yes. But also, the grit that feels like its rhyming counterpart. . . The irritation produces the substance that covers the grit with beauty. Without the irritation, the disruption, the foreign object, no pearl can be formed. But from that little grain comes something beautiful. How much more beauty might be born from this gritty season in which we are living?

August is in many ways the cruelest month. But it has many pockets of kindness and love and beauty.

Thanks be to God!

He Makes My Griefs to Sing

Wounded I sing, tormented I indite, Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest: Sorrow hath chang’d its note: such is his will, Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best. . . . . .I live to shew his power, who once did bring My joyes to weep, and now my griefs to sing. — George Herbert

“...Songs, like trees, bear fruit only in their own time and their own way: and sometimes they are withered untimely.”  

—Treebeard (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King)

And so it is with people. Sometimes they are withered untimely. 

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

Nine months have gone by, and still the fallout of your untimely withering haunts me and hurts me. I saw who you could be. The poet you were...the poet you could have been, the world will never know. You died untimely, Aaron. I feel the tension of who you were and who you became—and who you could have become if...if 'how it is' and 'how it should be' somehow were different. What if how it is were changed to how it should be? You would still be here. We would still be friends. 

Or would that be how it should be? 

No one is ever told what would have been... And who can say how it should be, except the Maker Himself? You would still be here, I believe—but perhaps we would still be separated. Friendships grow, but they can also change and they can wither, too. I know that is okay, but sometimes I really hate it. I don't want to not be friends. I don't want you to be gone. I don't want to bear this perpetually bleeding wound... Because I want you to still be you. I want you to still be alive and 'normal.' I want to still be friends. I want that to be how it should be. But I don't get to be in control.


Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?

Salvation is here

"Where can you run to escape from yourself?" If only I knew. I think you wanted to know, too. To escape from the torn, tortured part of your mind. And honestly, I want to run from the ugly, mean, revolting me that I too often am. I want to escape the things and the people who overwhelm and suffocate me. And I think you did, too. I evade and hedge and hide... You took a more drastic route to escape from yourself. I think I understand, a very little bit. I am trying to forgive you for leaving me...for leaving your family...for leaving a broken world that needed your songs. 

Only God's forgiveness to me in my brokenness fuels my love, my ability to forgive. And I know His forgiveness inspired you. Do you remember penning this: "Unmerited favour is my only remedy"? You did...and it rings in my memory like a clear bell-cry. Unmerited favour is my only remedy! Indeed. 

When Redemption is fully perfected in the Kingdom-coming, I want to hear its stories. I want to hear redemption in your story...to see how it threads through and plays out. Will you tell me the story? Will you teach me the language of the Kingdom? Will you help my tongue and heart live the words and ways of the Kingdom? 


When it feels like surgery And it burns like third degree And you wonder what is it worth? When your inside's breaking in And you feel that ache again And you wonder What's giving birth?

If you could let the pain of the past go Of your soul None of this is in your control If you could only let your guard down You could learn to trust me somehow I swear, that I won't let you go If you could only let go your doubts If you could just believe in me now I swear, that I won't let you go

Nine months later and this song still makes me cry.

Jon Foreman said this about I Won't Let You Go: "If the Author of time and space, the one who breathed my soul into existence, were to sing me a song about trust, it might go something like this, 'I love you and I won’t let you go.' I believe that where you put your trust begins to define you."

Where you put your trust begins to define you. I've put my trust in myself, in my friends, in my family. I've had friends leave me, annoy me, and/or smother me. A friend recently asked if I got tired of them... My response was honest, "I get tired of myself and can't get away from me. So yeah, I get tired of everyone I know at some point. The only exception is God. I don't get tired of Him." I've put my trust in people (myself included) who let me down, who don't satisfy, who don't know what to do or what I need. For a season of my life, I even put some of my trust in you, Aaron. I trusted that you were a first-friend—someone who understood gloaming and poetry, who had seen the grey-green wave in the sunrise, who would be my friend in rough times. In many ways, you were and you did.

But my ultimate trust can't be in any creature or creation. As wonderful as people are, as much as mountains and pine trees and rivers are 'home,' they will fail me, even hurt me. It isn't that we shouldn't trust others or not revel in creation. If we first trust God to love us and to not let us go—even when we want to let go and are tired of ourselves—then we can trust others and love them and creation. But if we don't truly trust God first, how can we trust or love anyone or anything else?

There ain't no darkness strong enough
that could tear you out from my heart There ain't no strength that's strong enough
that could tear this love apart Never gonna let you go

It's still true. Though Treebeard also says, "Never is too long a word, even for me" I dare to say it, with God's help. Because eternity is both now and to come. And for eternity I will hold on to the love and friendship you gave to me. Not in a grasping, hoarding way, but as a handhold on the face of the mountain as I climb toward the Lord. I will hold on for dear life—because life is dear. Your love, your generosity, the beauty and wonder of your soul are supports for me on this path. I could not proceed—I would not be where I am today—without those holds you provided. Your friendship has changed me, deepened me, strengthened me...made me more like Christ. Thank you, Aaron. I love you and I miss you, friend.

~ Me

The Scars Deep in Your Heart

Wednesday
Tonight I made corn salsa with cilantro and lime, heated raw tortillas and spread them with homemade salsa verde, and added savoury pronghorn with jalapenos and cheese. The flavours were fresh, alive on my tongue. Thus I shared a meal with a friend. Over tea, however, we shared tales and tears. My tears were flavoured with sorrow and fear—that fear of forgetting. Fear of trying so hard to be okay that I lose any semblance of who I am.
After two or three weeks of not entering fully, not encountering grief the way I had been, I put the kleenex box back on the windowsill. I wore colour—rather than black and grey—for the first time in over two months. And I felt like a traitor. Disloyal to my grief, and ultimately, disloyal to Aaron. Sometimes I fear that I am forgetting, and sometimes I fear that this bleeding wound will never heal. I simultaneously hope it never does and long for the blood to clot, the scar to form.

These are the scars
deep in your heart
This is the place you were born
This is the hole
where most of your soul
comes ripping out
From the places you've been torn
And it is always yours
But I am always yours

The shape of these words has become so familiar to my ears that they are often background noise at work. But when I stop to listen to them, they still make me ache. It is as if the scar forms from the inside out; deep in my heart the blood is either being staunched or it is left to pour out.
Though I have been living on the surface for much of the last few weeks, I wonder if it is because the grief is going deeper in and I don't want to follow it. I want to be distracted. I want to be shallow—it's easier, it doesn't hurt so much. Yet it isn't really healing—and it could end up hurting other people. But even more, it feels like forgetting. And forgetting tastes like fear rather than life.

_______

Saturday

I moved the kleenex box back to my bed from the windowsill. I'm not expecting a sudden influx of tears, but one never does expect the tears. They come when they want. . .and sometimes they dry up, even when you feel like you need or want to cry them.

Today I'm wondering what it looks like to move deeper into grief. My initial need to internalise and then verbalise is still latent, but there has been a shift. Now I feel like I'm focussed on myself, rather than on remembering everything I possibly can about Aaron. Partly because I can't live in the past, but partly because remembering hurts. Remembering reminds me of how wrapped up in myself I was—too wrapped up to see that my friend needed more than an ordinary amount of help; to see that he was reaching out to me specifically in those first few years.

My understanding of 'normal' friendship was formed from my Semester friends. They set the bar severely high for everyone else. When we all began to be beacons of beauty, truth, and goodness in our own locales, it was hard to continue investing such devoted time to long-distance friends. Yet many of us did so for years. I felt the loss keenly when school, work, marriage, or children diminished the time we had once devoted to one another. I know the changes and the growth in our own communities and families had to happen—that is healthy and good. But the 'creeping separateness' deserved to be grieved.

With Aaron, the separation was gradual at first, then terribly abrupt near the end of his time in the Air Force. Maybe I blame the AF more than I should, but they did not help my friend while he was in their care. Though, to their credit, they did serve him well after his discharge. There is also regret when I think too much about Aaron's AF years. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I have no idea what I really could have done, but I still wish I had done something.

Then there is the regret when I think about the five-ish years between the time I last saw Aaron and when he ended his life. I wish I had visited him when I could have—before I ever moved to Colorado. I wish I had called sometime in those last five years, even when I wasn't sure if he would talk to me. Maybe he wouldn't have, but I wish I had tried to show him how much he mattered. And perhaps more than anything, I wish I had said 'Thank you' when I realised how much Aaron had quietly given me. I had the window of about one year when I had that chance...and I didn't take it.

When I remember, the pain comes spilling over in salty brine. And it is good to care, but it hurts.
If it doesn't break your heart, it isn't love
Now if it doesn't break your heart it's not enough
It's when you're breaking down with your insides coming out
It's when you find out what your heart is made of

Maybe I'm tired of my insides coming out, of my soul dripping out of the places I've been torn. But I pray for the Spirit to stand me on my feet, to help me to step into the ache. Because the distractions I've chased make me less human. I begin to be inhumane toward others. . .or I fear reaching out to others, because to reach out means to care. To care means to give another person the power to hurt me; because they, too, will go away and leave me with another rend in my heart. I don't have enough blood to sustain the loss over and over.

But I will go recklessly on, loving and being loved. Because what if I didn't? What value would there be to life? God made us to be loved and to learn to love. It isn't the love that hurts, it is the deep, intolerable scar of the Fall that makes love painful, because now there is loss. Now there is total separation in some cases. Recently it has come to me what a brilliant image Lewis paints of the Fall with Ransom's bleeding heel in That Hideous Strength. He is wounded with an interminable (on this planet) injury which bleeds slowly and continuously—like the Fall pierces us with the interminable injury of sin, a wound that cannot be staunched this side of full redemption.

Sometimes, in an effort to get out of myself, I try to give to too many people. I try to love from my own flesh, my own 'strength'—every time I have tried this (innumerable times), I fail and relationships detonate. Rather, I am learning to love others in and from my weakness, because in my weakness I see that I can only do anything through the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Just because someone wants or even needs a friend, doesn't mean I have to be, or should be, that friend for them.

With Aaron, I tried to be a loyal friend, and I should have. We had a solid groundwork of life-together friendship. Right now I find I need to be a loyal friend to those with whom I have a friendship groundwork already laid. In this season, to reach out (beyond common courtesy) to new friends is leaving me mentally on the surface when I need to dig deep. . .deep into the Word; deep into the things I have been learning; deep into my wounded heart. Not to enlarge the hole, but to follow it down to where the scar is beginning to form. . .deep in my heart.

___________


— "Always" by Jon Foreman

— "Yet" by Jon Foreman and Tim Foreman

Photo: "Farewell, Goodbye" Wolf Creek Pass Overlook, Colorado (2007)

Seasons: Limbs and Branches

September found our leaves light green,
like the early leaves of balmy spring,
but the nip in the air mixed the colours
into gold and rust, an autumnal dream
that shone three months on us

January came with blustery wind
and the letters flew between us, friend;
like flakes of snow on our branches bare
were those white word-pages we would send
for weeks and months on end

December blew you into my home,
like a leaf adrift, liked a half-read poem,
full of moods: mirth and sadness;
full of restless blood that made you roam,
flowing from your broken heart

May in two years more brought word,
a banishment of sorts had occurred
for us both, mine short, yours long—
Alas! You became a flightless bird
Giving your wings away to me

November dawned in glittering gold,
in a gift and a letter, for lo and behold!
I was to fly to our beloved England,
to drink it in, gain knowledge to hold
in my hand like a gift. . .from you

April saw my return from abroad,
changed, humbled, full, and awed
my leaves flourishing, blossoming,
but yours, I soon saw, were flawed,
as if frost or hail had visited

February two years down the road
had seen hard times for us both
again, while my roots were strong,
you seemed to be withering slow
and steady from within

July brought news of ill health
for your mind, once a wealth
of jolly poems, songs, and dreams,
now afraid. Your confused self
sought safe home-hermitage

January many a year I strove
to send word that you were loved,
but your blighted tree withdrew
into your world of books and stove,
while mine flourished and grew

September dawned on one black day,
your tree hewn, you went away
and left me all alone to grieve,
my flourishing seemed to decay
your once vibrant tree


________


Choice is the only thing we're given
For one to live, another dies
One road says hello, the other says goodbye. . .
Tonight, [friend], I'm gonna break your heart
Mine was broken from the start, broken from the start
— Jon Foreman, Broken from the Start

Photo: "Lonely Tree", taken at the Cliff Walk; Newport, Rhode Island (2018)

When it Burns Like Third Degree

Grief is simply love with nowhere to go.

—Kenneth Robertson

Nowhere to go. . .That feeling when you come home from work and can't decide if you are hungry or not. When you can't settle. When you feel all of the loose ends unravelling. I have wandered aimlessly through the house, feeling both lost and as if I had lost something too dear to name. 

One moment I will laugh over a line in a letter, the next I will break my heart over the ache of the emptiness. Over the loss with no chance to reconcile this side of the veil. It is love wanting to reach the one loved, but that one resides in a place I've never known. . .A place I've longed for all of my life. But how does love cross the chasm of death? 

Death can't stop how life works; not truly. But it sure as Hell seems like death is winning; like death has the upper hand over life. Death stepped in and stopped the end goal of my love: my friend himself. And now that love wants to run on, over Sunset Hill, across the water, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, up to the top of the golden mallorn tree, where my elven-friend must dwell under the stars. But though I've seen many glorious golden trees with milk-white stems, and though I've stood beneath a silver shower of starlight, my love seems to whirl away on the crisp breeze, as lost as I am.

In the lostness comes the haunting fear. The fear that I will forget. That I will go on with life and not remember the reason why my life took a turn for the better. I am afraid that I will forget to say 'thank you' through my life itself. I want my friend, quiet though he was much of the time, not to be overlooked or forgotten. And I am so afraid to let go of the ache, of the tears. I am afraid of this gaping wound healing over. . .

When your fear is currency
And you feel that urgency
You want peace but there's war in your head
Maybe that's where life is born
When our façades are torn
Pain gives birth to the promise ahead

Out of this pain has been birthed the most urgent desire to reach the Kingdom. The promise of what lies ahead. Reuniting in an unfallen, unbroken place, where the bell of doom has been unrung and the deplorable word—mine!—has never been uttered. I long for that place. So. Much. But I love this life, too. Today I asserted that wondrous line, "Dear old world, you are beautiful, and I am glad to be alive in you." And I am. Glad for the Beauty and the grandeur, for the friendships and the love spilling over. . .And I am desolate, too. Both together, rolled up in this dichotomy I don't even understand. I ache when I am alone and let myself remember. Yet, oh, I want to remember!

If you could only let your guard down
If you could learn to trust me somehow
I swear, that I won't let you go
If you could only let go your doubts
If you could just believe in me now
I swear, that I won't let you go

When I first let these words run over me, I cried. Oh friend, I wish you could have let your guard down with me, with your family, with some other friends. . .And I wish I had been worthy of that, and of your trust and friendship, too. I will always carry you in the fabric of who I am. So in a way, I can't forget. I can't love anyone else with the kind of love I have for you, my fair elven-friend. And I can only pray that this love that has nowhere to go in this life will be poured forth, refined and purified, into the man I will one day meet again in the realised Kingdom. 

There ain't no darkness strong enough 
that could tear you out from my heart

There ain't no strength that's strong enough 
that could tear this love apart

Never gonna let you go




______

"I Won't Let You Go" by Switchfoot
Songwriters: Jonathan Mark Foreman / Timothy David Foreman

Created for a Place I've Never Known

"I've got my memories

Always inside of me

But I can't go back

Back to how it was...

...Created for a place 

I've never known"

Memories—I have those, too. But they are intangible. A stack of letters, smooth under my fingers, they are tangible. They hold your ruminations, a hundred quotations, illustrations, and aspirations. But letters cannot give me a bear hug. So I have your blue plaid flannel shirt wrapped around me. But where are your strong arms, my friend?

I can't wander back to the Lodge and find you there. Can't find you perched atop a woodpile at my parents' house...or at your parents' house, either. Believe me, I've looked. I've seen your bookshelf, the beautiful things you crafted, your writing desk, the footprints you left in the closet, your handwriting on the mirror. But you have gone on without me—beyond the veil to a place I've never known. A place I yearn for in the beautiful, aching moments. You've run ahead to a place I long for more earnestly now than I ever have.

Looking back over your letters has become something of a yearly tradition around our almost-shared birthdays. Ever since the day I first met you, I have known you were different than other people. Sometimes that difference was frustrating, as I just wanted an answer about your favourite food or your week's adventures. But more often, your different-ness was perceptive and inspiring. You once sent me a heart-full poem, asking for my advice, only to have me mutilate it—blind until years later to the depth of sorrow and beauty commingled therein.

I should have known that the soul of an artisan-poet, so well-versed in the language and habits of the King's world, wasn't long for this fragmented, still-fallen one. Perhaps part of your restless wanderlust stemmed from never quite feeling like you belonged here. There seemed no corner of the earth that could quite be your very own, my elven-friend. So you chose to step out of this world to find the place you had never known, but longed for all your life.

"This is home

Now I'm finally where I belong

Where I Belong

Yeah, this is home

I've been searching for a place of my own

Now I've found it

Maybe this is home

This is home"

Like Jewel says in The Last Battle, 'I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.' But there you are; you've gone further up and further in, without me. I envy you. So. Much. And I look forward to the day when I will get into Narnia and you can teach me the ways and words of the Kingdom. Who knows how long that will be, life is too dear to leave it without Aslan deliberately calling me away. But when He does—O friend!—come meet me. Show me sylvan glades where the dryads play. Teach me all the colours I haven't seen before. Tutor me in the names of the trees and the contours of the Kingdom. And help my trembling, tied tongue to learn to lisp the language of Heaven, until it becomes familiar to taste the words.

You have always shown me the world through different eyes. You have shown me beauty and wonder—ever my guide into Faerie Land. You have asked the questions I didn't even think to question. You have valiantly lived, trying to reconcile confusion and the constant hurricane of thoughts and fears. 

"And now after all my searching

After all my questions

I'm gonna call it home

I've got a brand new mindset

I can finally see the sunset

I'm gonna call it home"

Do you remember the time that you told me that your family went to the beach on or around Christmas, and that you saw a wall of water rising up and the sun behind it? Those lines from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader  sounded so naturally like something that would actually happen to you. And now you're in Aslan's own Country, the Utter East. Perhaps you sailed so far West from the Grey Havens as to arrive in the East. But you left me here without you, friend. In many ways, you left me for another world years ago. I always hoped you would find your way back far enough to reach out your hand to me once again. But we can't go back to how it was. And maybe that is for the best. I don't know if I could have borne the changes in you since that last visit. They were already apparent then...and they hurt to see. But know that I never stopped loving you and being your friend, even from a distance.

Perhaps it is better that what I do remember is you running to ring the unringable church bell in Pagosa. You, sitting on the floor, reading The Silmarillion aloud to me. The vast amount of ham you could eat! 'Phoners' and enthusiastic letters. The artistry of your hands and the music you played. The enthusiasm you had for music and lyrics and poetry. 

You were hard for me to understand, my friend. But not hard to love. You were hard for me to know how to help in fits of depression. But it seemed to be a joy for you to help me—even when I didn't always know it was your hand reaching out to me. You visited me when I was lonely. You gave me one of the greatest adventures I've ever taken, and were an integral part of my other grand adventure. You gave me the gift of your friendship, even though it cost you dearly to be open to loving another living thing. When you withdrew that gift, I felt abandoned, betrayed, unwanted. But now I know it was not because you didn't care, you cared more than you knew how. A part of me ceased all those years ago, and now part of me has died with you, friend. There are things that will never heal this side of Aslan's Country.

Missing you hurts like Hell, Aaron. Because it is Hell that stole you from me, from your dear family, and from a world that needs to see through your eyes. 

'This is worse than Mordor!' said Sam. 'Much worse in a way. It comes home to you, as they say; because it is home and you remember it before it was all ruined.' I remember you before the enemy set about to ruin you, to try to take you. But though you have gone further up and in, while I am left in the Shadowlands, neither has the enemy succeeded. You are now safe forever from confusion and heartache. You get to know how fully loved you are. You belong. 

Your seed has fallen into the ground in order to bear much fruit. In so many ways, the Lord has already borne good fruit through you, my friend, but the harvest continues. I can't thank you enough for being you. I love you. So. Much.

"A truer, nobler, trustier heart 

never beat within a human breast" 

—Lord Byron

“But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” 

—C S Lewis, The Last Battle

___________

Song lyrics: This is Home by Switchfoot
Quotation 1: The Last Battle, by C S Lewis

Quotation 2: The Return of the the King, by J R R Tolkien