"Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?" - Mary Oliver

The greatest gift of love is the gesture of open arms--let come what comes--not because you don't care, or because you hope to steel yourself against the pain, but because you care so much that you are helpless to do anything else. And you accept the cost, the inevitable blow to the heart. It's better in this life, after all, for the heart to be broken--to take on the rich, the tender vulnerability of being human, than not.

"What will survive of us is love." - Phillip Larkin

Graham and I experienced what I'll state simply- gradual differences of life purpose and direction. I've always shined my light on the human capacity to truly love, but I have to accept the way life moves and has its own intelligence, and accept the reality that we are never entirely in control of the way things go. It's hard to resist the urge to hold on, not wanting to let that precious feeling go.

Suffering is a part of how it is on earth; it is an inherent part of the fabric of existence. And if we are lucky, it will break our hearts open. And the heart of love is truly openness. We let everything in and through, willing to feel more rather than less, even if it rocks our very foundations. That's very easy to say, not so easy to do. But we have a lifetime of practice. A goodbye is essentially a deepening acceptance of life as it is instead of what it was or what we may have wanted it to be.

William Blake urges us to "catch a winged moment as it flies."
In the poem "The God Abandons Anthony," the poet urges Anthony not to turn away from the beauty of the music, but to turn toward it; to take in the full impact of the loss he is going to sustain; to be willing to listen--"to the exquisite music of that strange procession, and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are leaving. " To say goodbye with all our heart, is to turn a parting into a blessing. God be with you--goodbye means.

And isn't that what we're here for? To bless the savor of this precious moment even as it slips through our fingers? To allow its sorrow, its joy, its silence or laughter into our life and add a measure to who we are?