The room in our house
where she took her last breath
is my hallowed place.
I meet her there often.
You really did it this time!
I say to her.
It’s Christmas, the kids will be home.
How could you?
I lie there, in that room
where we shared it all,
and I ask her to be with me.
I learn the truth
about the price of great love--
grief of equal proportion.
I discover that I love her
in ways I never knew I did,
or could.
John A. Bayerl
December 9, 2010
This morning, as I reached in the cabinet to get a cup for my coffee, I realized that it was time to run the dishwasher. There was a cup left, but I couldn't use it--it was Gwen's favorite cup. I chide myself about this; after all, I use "her" bowls for cereal that I eat with a spoon that she used. For goodness sake, most of the air you breathe is air she breathed. The coffee cup has joined what I have come to call theholy ordinary, list; those ordinary items in my life that are in some way made holy through their association with that which makes all things holy-love. That cup reminds me of so many late afternoons spent enjoying a cup of tea with Gwen, something we both loved doing. The conch shell on display in one of our bathrooms I found on a beach on St. Kitts Island when Gwen and I spent a week there. It will be looked at with much more reverence today. I'm sure any of those who might read this will be generating their own holy ordinary lists as they read. We who love find holiness in those we love and all things close to them.
In addition to coffee cups, songs and other artifacts that Gwen and I shared, during the years she was ill we shared a bedroom in a lower level of our home. Most of that time we shared a big old queen-sized bed, but, as her disease progressed, she slept in a hospital bed on loan from the hospice, and I slept near her in a twin bed. Immediately after her death my children wisely moved me to the bedroom Gwen and I had used prior to her illness. The hospital bed was returned to the hospice, and another bed replaced my twin bed in the room where she died. This is another instance where to talk about it too much will profane it, that’s what the poem is for. The poem was written about a month after Gwen died. As I read it now I find that the anger I had then has somewhat dissipated.
In addition to coffee cups, songs and other artifacts that Gwen and I shared, during the years she was ill we shared a bedroom in a lower level of our home. Most of that time we shared a big old queen-sized bed, but, as her disease progressed, she slept in a hospital bed on loan from the hospice, and I slept near her in a twin bed. Immediately after her death my children wisely moved me to the bedroom Gwen and I had used prior to her illness. The hospital bed was returned to the hospice, and another bed replaced my twin bed in the room where she died. This is another instance where to talk about it too much will profane it, that’s what the poem is for. The poem was written about a month after Gwen died. As I read it now I find that the anger I had then has somewhat dissipated.
Added on February 17, 2011:
This morning, Dear, I was at the hospital where you had all your treatments, tests, CT Scans and the like. After completing the test I went there for, I had breakfast at Nick’s, a little restaurant in the hospital where you and I spent many happy hours having a meal or just a cup of coffee. Those were very ordinary moments, but during those times we were falling in love all over again—Nick’s is a holy place.
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rated with love and empathy