Love Ripens Through Grief

A love letter that will never receive an answer.

Hi,

How are you this week? Have you dived into your depths?

Nightfall near Olana (1872) by Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826-1900)

It’s been nearly eight years, and you still visit me from time to time. Usually, you come carried by a sudden thought that strikes like lightning and drenches my head in a downpour. I don’t see you at night anymore; you don’t appear in my dreams. I guess since you came to me in one of them and sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed my hand, saying you had to say goodbye and asked me to let you go, you locked that door behind you, and I’m sure you had a reason for it.

You told me then to be brave and to take care of myself, and I did my best not to let you down. I hope you took good care of yourself, too. I didn’t know back then that over the following years, I was to question everything I knew about the world and myself and come out stronger and calmer, with my heart open and trusting.

Through this time, I’ve come to realise that grief might not be something one heals from and leaves behind but rather something to learn to live with–and love through–continuously. I often thought I had dealt with it already, once and for all. I thought that if I ever recalled your name, it would now be only with gratitude and steady joy for having had the chance to know you. Yet, there were moments when a memory of your caring gaze, the safety of your presence, or the untamed passion for all things in life descended upon me unexpectedly and totally, and there was nothing I could do. I’d let it wash all over me and leave when it was ready to go. I do miss you sometimes, but it doesn’t make my life miserable anymore.

The waters of grief that took your place in my heart kept deepening me, flowing in and out of my being. Sometimes, I wonder if it's still my grief alone, or if, after all these years, it has opened me to a union of all grieving beings—the rivers flowing through us forming an ocean of shared sorrows. If there’s one thing that unites us all, it surely must be pain.

So, that’s how I learned to live with it: allowing it to deepen me, day by day, and show me what I am made of.

We couldn’t be together, but if it weren’t for our lack of recklessness, we would have sacrificed everything in a heartbeat just for the possibility of it. The day after you left us all lucky enough to know you and denied the opportunity of knowing you for those less fortunate, I began writing letters that would never receive a response.

In one of them, I said I didn’t think I would ever again be able to love the way I had loved you. That our love was one of a kind, unheard of, bigger than us and greater than anything we could ever try to express. I said I would wait for you all my life; with every step I took and every breath I drew, I felt like I lived for both of us. Now, after having dated many men in whom I initially searched for at least a glimpse of you, after getting in and out of relationships, and finally, after learning to love anew, and deeply—I still agree with these words.

Losing you has been the hardest, most devastating thing I’ve had to endure. When you were gone, I had lost a grip on who I was. I didn’t know how to make sense of my life when it no longer included talking with you daily. I was clueless about navigating the world that had been denied the privilege of homing you.

Leaving, you took my love with you, and that love was all I had in those days. You left me impoverished and stripped bare, without the protective shell which I’d built to shelter me from a world that suddenly seemed too daunting to live in on my own.

The day you left was sunny and warm. Nature was finally regaining its confidence after a long wintery slumber, opening its buds wide and daring. All of us, too, spilt out onto the streets from our cold apartments like seeds from a bucket, filled with the promise of soon blossoming.

The sun enveloped our bodies and minds with its serene, patient warmth. It seemed as if the whole world had paused to breathe in the fragrance of early spring flowers, listen to the birds’ rehearsals, and stare at the sky, unable to fathom its infinite blueness that embraces everyone unconditionally, wherever they might be—even those who no longer walk upon the earth.

We were supposed to meet the following day, and I couldn’t sit still from excitement. I was at work, and when I grabbed my phone to text you and confirm our meeting, they asked me to come for a word.

They told me you had fallen in a supermarket parking lot, and before an ambulance arrived, you had left your beautiful body, which had homed you for all these years, and you walked away lighter and free. Your heart full of love had stopped. They told me nothing could’ve been done to keep you down here. They told me to go home, and I couldn’t move.

Due to reasons known only to the two of us and your one friend, I was asked not to come to your funeral, and I genuinely wanted to respect this request. Yet, on the day of your burial, I opened my eyes with complete conviction that there was no other place on Earth I could’ve been in that moment. So I jumped on my folding bicycle and pedalled in one breath to meet you where you had to be met. Everything in me was running in your direction, and although I knew your body was not where you could be found anymore, I felt I had to be there to help you bear all this mess that had become your new world.

The cemetery sat on the foot of a small hill, and that’s where I decided to wait for you. I had no clue where exactly they’ll lay your body, so I figured I would be better able to scan the whole area from the hill’s peak. I sat there for over an hour, trying to spot the funeral procession. Finally, they appeared, but were very close to the hill, and I was afraid they might see me. I got up, ran down the opposite side, circled the foothill, and crawled into the nearby bushes.

Laying on the ground, I clenched onto the little rocks sprinkled around my body. Although excluded from all the happening, I felt your presence everywhere around me. I watched them putting your body to the ground, covering it with a stone, wailing and holding each other. I felt deep tenderness and warmth looking at it. Saying goodbye to your beautiful body, I knew that from now on, you’ll be free to accompany me wherever I go for as long as you want to stay around. That you won’t need to choose between me and them anymore.

I remained on the ground as long as you needed me to until I sensed you had left to join the crowd gathered around your grave. I knew you wanted to spend some time in person with them, too, before you become one with every-thing and every-body. I backed up slowly, jumped on my bike, and pedalled away. I drove aimlessly for a while, not knowing any place I would want to be now that you couldn’t be met there anymore. Finally, I arrived by a river, which—I didn’t know it yet—was to become the keeper of my secrets.

From then on, I was to sit on her bank every evening, opening my mind and heart, letting flow out all that could no longer be contained within. The river, tranquil and patient, accepted everything without a ripple, cradling my sorrow and the entire existence in its peaceful current that, just like them, had neither a beginning nor an end. Every time, I would leave somewhat lighter and calmer, as if the flowing water carried away my pain bit by bit, supporting in healing the parts of me that hadn’t yet learned to stand alone.

My friend asked me sometime ago whether, through these memories of you, I didn’t feel like I was doing something wrong, considering I had been in a new relationship then. Without hesitation, I said no. I am not sure if someone who hasn’t experienced a similar loss is capable of understanding it. And I can’t blame them; it does feel wrong in some ways when I talk about it the way I had written it here. I deliberated for a long time before deciding to publish this letter; I knew it might read wrong to some. But that’s the thing—words often fail in such situations. I don’t think remembering you takes away from the love I can offer now. And I believe you’d accept it, as much as I hope others will be able to accept it too.

When I first began to love you, I was nineteen. I believed with all I had that just because we loved each other, the world had to make a way for us. And if all I had wouldn’t suffice to make it work, I’d find a way to bet more on us. I was yours, and you were mine, and that was supposed to be enough—or at least we wanted to believe so.

I remember telling you that as long as we have this love, things will work out. And you, despite being ten years older and ten-years-more-experienced in the matters of the heart, allowed me to hold onto this hope. I think you tried to borrow it from me; you wished for all of it to be true.

You told me once that, in me, you found everything you ever wanted but thought you had lost forever. So maybe that’s what it was. Maybe I was giving you hope of regaining the lost youthful naivety and the simplicity of love. Maybe in me, you were able to see the reflection of your younger self. And maybe that was something you thought you had lost forever.

Back then, I didn’t take into account the possibility of death. I didn’t even consider it could come in between us; after all, our love was supposed to shield us from everything bad in this world. I can’t help but smile when I recall my simple-hearted teenage naivety. It is long gone, and I know I cannot recover it.

That’s why, my dear, I will never love again the way I had loved you. And even if you came to me now, stood before me and took my open hand into your plentiful palms—I don’t think I’d be able to love you the way I did back then. And that, too, makes me smile. My heart, while carrying the imprint of our connection, had grown capable of new, mature forms of love.

You see, when I lost you, I had no other choice than to give up everything in the search for myself. All that I wanted to bet on us, all the strength and hope I had garnered to sustain our love, I now had to put on myself. I needed it to lift myself from the floor each night when I cried myself to sleep on its cold surface. I needed this love to force myself to swallow food when my throat was too tight to utter a word. I needed it to go to work, run errands, and pay the bills in a timely manner despite my inability to comprehend the date, as everything had merged into a unified leaden mass of sorrow. Swimming in it, every move felt like my last, and yet I kept moving.

I had to relearn life without you, and nothing ever was to be the same. I had lost my entitlement to happiness and love. I had abandoned the belief that those things should be provided for me, and instead, I learned to work on making them happen. I had committed to take full responsibility for my life, and eventually, I had found the source of all my suffering and all of my joy—deep down inside me.

I made many mistakes, and more often than not, it felt like walking blind in the mist. But in hindsight, I can see that all this time, I kept following the right path; it just looked nothing like I would’ve imagined before. It took me years to be able to walk at a steady pace without tripping over on a straight road. Everything had changed; everything. And I think that saved me.

When I say I wouldn’t be able to love the way I had loved you, I am glad it is this way. That means I have grown, healed, and seen through things which otherwise would’ve remained inscrutable and impenetrable. It means I have learned to love myself and life with all they contain—and thanks to that, I no longer put it all in the hands of another human being. It means that I have faced my darkness and walked through it until I saw the light again.

It means that I was broken open, and all my guts and hopes spilt out for everyone to see, and because of that, I no longer need to hide from the world; I no longer fear it the way I did. It means that I went through years of fighting for my life, licking my wounds, learning not to reopen them with sharp memories, and finding my own ways through countless trials and errors. 

And finally, it means that even though I miss you still at times, and perhaps a part of me always will, I no longer believe it denies me genuine happiness, deep fulfilment, and a new, exciting, one-of-a-kind love.

Though these years have tempered the magic and romanticism that ruled the perceptions of my younger self, they haven’t extinguished them. Instead, the grief that entered my door has deepened them, turning a somewhat youthful idealism into practice. Every day, I am learning to see the world anew. As the love within me ripens, I prefer to find awe in life as it is, from moment to moment—not as I imagine it should be.

I am grateful I got to experience a love that was simple, unyielding, and so sure of its own force. I will cherish it for the rest of my life. And I am grateful for surviving its end. It showed me things I would have never thought I was capable of—such as loving anew.

The grace of grief

Many of our complex problems have approachable solutions, and those can be found in simple-hearted, everyday acts of kindness. The love we hold, as it ripens through the workings of grief, can melt all walls, heal all wounds, and bring together parts scattered to the world’s four corners. Starting with our own.

So, let’s love ourselves for all that we’re becoming, and for all that we’re leaving behind.

Let’s leave expectations and demands behind and allow ourselves to be present and patient with whatever needs to be experienced. Let’s open the doors and windows of our hearts and minds so the air can flow through freely, bringing warmth, the scent of flowers, and the freshness of new beginnings.

Let’s pay our eyes homage for all the tears they have shed, washing us from the pain and fear we thought we’d never be able to shake off. Let’s keep our heads straight up, our hearts strong and brave, for we are, yes—we are, able to endure everything that comes upon us. Let’s soothe our minds, leaping beyond their stories, to rest in the sweet silence of a knowing greater than anything we have learned before.

Let’s love those who were wounded and who still struggle to find their feet in the sea of sorrow they were thrown into. Let’s open our arms to those seeking shelter from their pain and refrain from judging those who hurt us, for they, too, have been hurt before.

And if we fear that the love and joy we once had were the only ones we were given, let’s soften our gaze, relax our muscles, and breathe in gently, for the love and the joy that we yearn for so badly are ours to create—not only others to give.

The world might at times appear to be a loveless place. In moments like this, let your tired hand rest upon the soft fur and let it be licked clean of all its efforts—where there are dogs, there is love. That, we can be certain of.

Question to you, dear reader:

How do you create your joy?

With much love,

Justyna