the hurricane

Words lunged with fangs and claws! 

Pain turned on its heel and struck back, 

Crashing through fragile tenderness 

Already broken. 

Shards lay sharp and treacherous, 

Scattered across the floor 

Where tender hearts had once embraced, 

Not foreseeing catastrophe. 

The drive home from Visalia revealed no great insights. It went on far too long. He had formed a vision in his mind and heart for how to proceed with his love and his beloved. He just wanted to be home and to wait for her call. The road stood in his way, and he sped along, pushing the car, pushing the miles, pushing the law.

But as he pressed on, the road spoke to him with one small question. What if she did not want to be with him? That was the one possibility that his plan could not answer. He could boil oceans and move continents, but none of that would matter if she did not want him. This nagging question was clear and quiet in the back of his mind, and would not leave him alone. It crept into his hope and made him crazy with frustration and urgency to get home and talk to her. He had to know.

Finally, the drive was done. He checked the phone for messages and left a message for her that he had arrived and would like to talk as soon as she was ready. Then he got in the shower to freshen up in anticipation that he might see her today. After the shower, he checked e-mail on his computer, and there was her note.

It was a long note, and had been difficult for her to write. He knew this before he read the first word. As he began to read, he braced his heart for the worst, and it came. She had learned much about herself in the past year, and had begun to take good care of herself, learning how to be alone and comfortable with it for the first time ever. Then she had met him and he had utterly swept her off her feet. The whirlwind romance had been wonderful and powerful and idealistic beyond her dreams. But as time passed, she had begun to be swallowed up in it. She had begun to be smothered under the onslaught of his affection and nurture and care. She began to feel that her newfound self would be lost in him, and that was not a price she could pay. She had begun to relish the times when he was gone, and to arrange ways and reasons to be apart. Finally, as the opportunity to move to Colorado materialized, she made the choice to leave him to protect the precious self she had found.

As he read her letter, he grew numb. Here was the only attack against which he could not defend their love. He stood up and wandered aimlessly around the house for a few minutes, blank disbelief and horror mingled and tearing at his heart. Then, in a rush like none he had ever experienced in his entire life, grief and sorrow and loneliness and pain and rage rushed up and swept over him. He let it come unhindered, giving his voice and his lungs and every ounce of his being to it. For the rest of the day, the force of it was unabated. He had moments of relative calm, but the intensity of the waves of emotion that he was experiencing was so great that his arms and legs grew numb and cold as his energy was channelled so furiously away from his extremities and into this hurricane.

Whenever it seemed that he must stop to rest, another memory would well up and take him on to the next tidal wave of despair or pain or anger or compassion. Eventually he was able to call a trusted friend who knew his heart well. She came and spent the rest of the day with him, hearing his story, holding space around him for his broken heart to flounder in safely, and reassuring him that his body and heart would not be undone by the wrenching intensity of what he must endure.

He was exhausted from the ravages of finding himself deeply and utterly alone, and for the first time in two nights, he slept deeply. With morning came a relative calm. The storm of emotions was by no means over, but the fury of it was a little less intense. Now he could reflect a little in the moments between the waves. Now he could begin to examine what he was experiencing, and fill in a little with understanding.

He went to the Gavilan Cafe, and told Sandy and Mary Ann about the loss of his sweetheart, whom both had met, and they read his heartache and cared for him as well as they could over his breakfast. It was good to eat, and he was sure it would help to restore some of the weight he had lost since Sunday. Now it was Wednesday and he had only eaten twice. He went from the cafe to look at his bees, but the rain came hard and cold, and he could not open hives.

The day wore on into restlessness and urgency to find relief. Nothing helped. Distractions were only reminders, and activities were powerless to relieve. Loneliness and loss were his companions. They fed on everything he did. They walked in all his shadows. And even in the moments when a distraction seemed promising, he would turn away from it, knowing deeply that nothing must be allowed to interfere with his quest to heal this thing. He must continue on and face every moment as it came.