It wasn't rational, and I knew it. Yet, as the new year approached, I felt reluctant to let the old one go. Leaving 2017 felt somehow like leaving Bob behind--I was walking into a year Bob would never see, never be part of. It hasn't taken long for me to realize that although Bob won't see 2018, he is very much a part of it because he is such a part of me. The poet W. S. Merwin wrote:
Your absence has gone through me
like thread through a needle.
Everything I do
is stitched with its color.
I am discovering that even in his absence, Bob's love is a rich presence. It is stitched into so many memories, so many perspectives, even into many ordinary moments and remembered "private jokes." We have moved into this new year together, and I couldn't be more relieved nor more grateful.
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