Tears

I just watched the end of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and was struck by one of the final lines in the movie. As Frodo announced to his friends that he was leaving Middle Earth, Gandolf says: "I will not say: 'do not weep', for not all tears are an evil." This led me to thinking about the power and effect of tears.

I have shed so many tears of sorrow over the past months, but while many of those tears have come from the pain of my loss, many of those same tears have sustained my memories of Karen. Yet while tears may nourish the tree of memory, what happens when the tears no longer come or come less frequently? What happens to the memories? They don't go away. They don't wither. They remain. Perhaps not as vibrant as they once were, but remain they do. Forever. Like the rising of the sun or the movement of the tide, an ever-present part of life.

So it is as time passes by. That while things that were once as clear in my mind may still remain, they are no longer exist with such lucidity. Memories, like her smell, the sound of her voice, and the feeling of her skin are forever in my mind and heart, yet just a little less vivid than they were the day before. How I wish I could freeze in time every memory like it once was, but I know that is as impossible as it is to bring her back to me.

Hence, I cling to the pieces of her I have left. Those that are tangible for all to see and those that exist only where my mind's eye can view them. It is not enough, but it is all I have. She was a life force and a source of life. She brought me indescribable joy, happiness, and pleasure. And while no longer physically here, and drifting gently in the recesses of my life, she remains a part of me as she does for all those who knew her and so many who are only now discovering her in death.

How I wish everything were otherwise; that our expectations and dreams were fulfilled as planned. But that was not to be. Instead my life has become something else: a tribute to her and a passion to live not just for me but for her memory, regardless of its intensity.

To simply say I miss her would be to imply she, and everything she was, is gone. That is not the case. For even as turbidity invades my memories of her, they remain all the same and forever will. Just as she does.