Illumination

These moments of suspended unknowing
are grounded as well as up-gazing.
I think, who will know more than me in this moment?
And then I sit and look at the trees
While I look, I hear things
the frogs and crickets, the birds singing lullabies
and the brush of the wind.
Oh yes, I remember
Time is fragile but it extends
much like your patience
much like mine.

To love someone is to build a room in your heart.
To fashion it accordingly find them there beyond the little door
which is never locked.
And then, as we know, sometimes they go.
They pack their bags and say with a sad smile:
“Too much time has been spent here and I need to find a bigger room, a better room, a room that works for me in ways that you cannot give.”
And they usher you out, and lock the door behind them, taking the key.
Sometimes they just disappear, one day you go to search for them and they are no where to be found and you have to sit in their old chair, still smelling of them, and wonder. You finally find a letter from them, it says “This is no longer right. I must go. I cannot tell you why.”
Some, and this is the hardest gift of all, leave because something bigger calls them, they want to say goodbye but they can’t because the train is departing too quickly and they forgot to leave a note.
They don’t lock the door. They leave clues. Clues that say “I love you still.” and “We will meet again.” and “There is more than this, please don’t worry.”
It wasn’t their fault God called them out of that little room and up to his big house. And it isn’t your fault that you miss them still.

Love is light, it is all the lights on in every room of your heart. It is sitting and remembering your grandmother’s favorite song, your first boyfriend’s hands, the way your high school crush would call your name, the dimple on one side of a smile, the look of his eyes in candlelight, that first date. It is every time your friends made you laugh until you cried, or bought you a brownie after a meltdown, it is a cold coke with Chinese food for a hangover, the glow of the sun on the water, those autumn drives north, a warm bath after jumping in the snow, a hot chocolate despite it being July. It is your sister’s footsteps, your brother running the shower in the morning, your father calling for you up, up, up the stairs, your mother ushering you out the door. It is so many things. Tiny candles and little lanterns. Fireflies blinking on and off and on and off.
So many lights illuminating your heart, a home alight with good memories and fondness for every creature that has passed its doors. You can stand on the porch and hear them all inside, and you too, at whatever age you were with them and smile remembering.
And.
You can turn the lights off in rooms you don’t want to visit, forge a key and lock the door, throw the key in a box and never look for it again. That is your right as well, it is after all your house. Your heart.

And at the end, what a grand mansion you will have. How many tiny rooms built of joy. How much with blink back at you as you wave goodbye and head towards something brighter. A place where there are no walls, but ballrooms so vast and full of loved ones the space seems to lack structure at all. And all the light that illuminated your heart now is the first thing everyone sees, responds too and is pulled towards you by. Like a candle lighting another and another the whole place pulses with incandescence and remembering.

And all because you had such a bright house inside when you were here.

Love sure comes in handy.