Forgive me this one last look back...

When my oldest son broke up with his first girlfriend, the one he dated for three years from age 11 to 14, I wanted to console him, distract him, but when all failed I tried reason. "Son," I said softly, "you didn't plan to marry her or anything, now did you?" One look in his blue eyes told me his answer. Yes, in his sweet young innocence he saw her as the woman he would be with forever. I still think of her with great fondness and I know he does too. While his destiny was not tied with hers, she took him from childhood to awakening manhood in a way that makes me forever grateful to her. Today they both have happy productive lives with their own separate spouses and children. While I think that they might have been happy together at one time, they now have totally different world views and ambitions. Seeing her life and his it is hard to imagine how that might have turned out had they grown together instead of apart.

We all have special people that come into our lives at times when we need them most and then slip away when their job is done. For me they have been few and far between, perhaps because I appear so self sufficient from a distance, the distance I generally hold people for fear of getting hurt. But four years ago when I started this blog there was a man who saw through me like I was made of glass, immediately recognizing a kindred spirit. He found the soliloquy I spoke in that painfully honest way people have when they do not know they are being observed. When I saw his comment I felt like I had been discovered naked in church.  We burst into conversation like children being let out of school for summer, joyous, shouting, skipping, children. For that brief space I let myself believe that all things were still possible, all roads still open. He took my hand and pulled me out into the sunlight. He held up a mirror to my soul and made me look without turning away. I thought summer would last forever.

Our letters to each other flew across the distance between us like northern lights pulsing in the sky. I shared every secret of my heart and it felt like he did the same. When he started backing away I understood, because I knew him like I knew my own mind. I came very close to begging him to stay  even when I knew he had to go.  He maintained a presence on the internet for a long time. Not much was posted, but I could still go there and stand where he once stood, tracking the sentences with my fingers and remembering what he had given me. A few weeks ago I went and saw the words: The blog you were looking for was not found, like someone just turned off a light switch. I knew it was coming, but I still struggled in the dark for a bit.

My parents often told a story about me learning to walk.  I would grab for an adult hand to steady me, but rather than bend down to hold my hand, they would extend a rolled newspaper that I could grasp for support. One day the adult holding the lifeline let go, but unaware, I continued to keep my arm up in the air clutching the paper. For weeks I walked independently, but clinging to the imaginary support of the newspaper with my baby hand over my head. My parents found this hysterical and retold it at every opportunity. Although I remember nothing about it I think it sounds just like me. Years later when learning to swim I insisted that the teacher hold his hands inches below me in case I sunk under the water. I closed my eyes and floated happily until he called out to me from the other side of the pool. Like the man who walked across the water with his eyes on Jesus, in the second I stopped believing I sank.

Of course I did learn to walk on my own, to swim on my own, and honestly, I know I will continue to keep my eyes open, all on my own. I just want to say this to him on the chance that he might be listening still. The words are slightly paraphrased from an ancient anonymous poem that has always touched my heart.

"I did but see him passing by, but I shall love him 'til I die."