May you all know a love like this.

I went to grief counseling today – it was really interesting (for lack of a better word)- the Deacon said that I talk like his clients who have been married for 68 years – when it is a profound love, your life partner, I guess it doesn’t matter how long it has been you were married.

He said we spoke exactly alike, that the mutuality of our compassion and love for one-another was such that I think even he was taken by surprise, presumably given that he counsels people who were blessed to have a marriage last longer.

Isra and I had a lifetime together in our two years’ married; every loving gaze of her eyes was a glimpse into the oceans of Eternity.

Whilst she has been gone for over seven months now, or rather, is further along on her route towards her Lord (S), the grief is getting harder. Not because you know she’s not returning, but her absence is a weighty presence in and of itself.

Am I getting closer to knowing a truer Love when, on a good day, almost everything reminds me of her, or what she represents to me? I think of her in those moments as a sort of avatar for Love Incarnate. My tears are less bitter now, more sweet actually; and my sobs – ugly to the outside and perhaps heartbreaking even – are so utterly drowned with love that I’m able to contemplate a little bit at least about True Love, even as these sobs are ongoing and in the spaces between the deep breaths that need to be taken. In those negative spaces, I hold back waiting to breathe in, wondering if this is the means to the Beauty about which I’ve so-desperately longed to know.

What is time, when in the arms of your beloved?

Isra, my angel… I love you still. Always. Thank you for letting me love you. Love survives death, and in a way you are more alive to me now than I could ever think of realising. So thank you for loving me back. Even now. Always.