Kathryn, 23 years ago, you suddenly appeared at my office doorway and as we started dating, I told you I would hold you with an open hand. It was my way of saying, I am committed and yet if this relationship is not working, you are free to move on. During the next three years of my travel and the many letters exchanged, we found a love develop that was so unexpected.
We started our time of marrying* and as we were creating our life together, I held you with an open hand. Yet, while my open hand held you close, your open hand also held me, as we kept falling more deeply in love. Together, we realized we were holding each other in an unconditional love that was saying, be all of just who you are.
Your mighty cause emerged and as your book writing reached its pinnacle, I continued to hold you with an open hand. It was a time of bringing to the world the power of your ABT mindset and helping others see new possibilities. We found our own new possibilities, as we forged a time of working together every day.
You were diagnosed with cancer and as you navigated treatment, I held you so very close with an open hand. You found your own holding of yourself, when you pushed yourself forward by asking the question: “Yes and now what?”. You navigated your way through your treatment, until the days a year ago in July, that turned out to be your last. It was then in the ICU when I wanted to back-out of our open-hand deal, as I realized you were about to leave and never come back.
We gathered for your memorial service and as I stood before all those whose lives you’ve touched, I did my best to let you go with an open hand. It was the love you brought to me, it was the love you brought to everyone present, that helped us know you would be in our hearts forever. And still it has been a time of continuously finding how hard it is to truly let go.
You and I resonated early in our relationship with these words from David Whyte’s poem, The Truelove: “There’s a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours, especially if you have waited years and especially if part of you never believed you could deserve this loved and beckoning hand held out to you this way…..”
Kath, it’s now been a year since you passed, a year filled with grieving that has been intense. My open hand has let you go from this physical plane and as I sense your presence in spirit, just beyond the ‘veil of the portal’, I feel my heart overflowing with love. It is a love I never believed could be possible, and it causes me to reach out now with my beckoning hand, to draw our love even deeper into my very open heart and let the gratitude for all that was ours spill out into the new worlds now waiting for each of us.
*We always saw our marriage as a verb, something that continued to evolve, and so we always referred to it as “our marrying”.
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From my December 2016 New Year’s retreat experience on Whidbey Island, in Washington state, came conversations with sculptor Alexandra Morosco (a fellow Warrior Monk seeker) and from her deep listening and 3-dimensional storytelling process, emerged this vision of my open hand having let go of Kathy’s, yet still beckoning to hold it one more time.
“The Beckoning Hand”
by Alexandra Morosco, Sculptor
Morosco Fine Arts
© 2017 Morosco Fine Arts.
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At night, they would fall asleep holding hands
…..and only God knew that, side by side,
they were quietly praying for the same things.
By Kristen Jongen, www.mysoulsoup.com
