As many of you may know, I lost my soulmate back in 2006 to
a blood clot to their lung. As I noted to my dad about three days after Kate
passed, “The pain from this grief is something so horrible that I do not wish even
my worst enemy to experience, but the love I had for my soulmate that predates
this pain is something that I wish upon the entire world!” It was about 3 years
after Kate’s passing that I read the most profound statement. “Grief is the pain
one experience of having such intense love for someone but nowhere for that
love to go.” While I do realize that in my spiritual walk I will see Kate again
one day, and that my love can be poured out to the Universe so that she can
still feel it now, the physical feeling of not being able to tangibly hug,
hold, and kiss is still near unbearable these eighteen years that have passed
from that moment when I first expressed this to my dad.
So, the events of this past week have hit me rather hard
and triggered me in a way that I did not expect. Rob Yost, a co-worker of mine
at NAMI Kansas and one I considered a friend, also passed to the next
experience from his life here on earth. While I did not know Rob to the depth
that I knew my beloved Kate, I now look back on our togetherness as co-workers
and friends and wish I knew more about his life. And this is not just a one and
done deal. One of my loves and struggles is to learn history. I love it because
it shares such unique experiences of times long past. I struggle with it
because I discover pieces and slivers of people that I earnestly wish I could
have met and befriended.
I recently read an excerpt on Harriet Tubman and realize
the immense beauty that woman harbored. How sad it is to live a life now
without knowing her as a close friend. Or to go back even further in history to
the day and month of my birth but the year being 1706. How I long to have
befriended my twin in a different century, Benjamin Franklin. Yes, what little
I know of him I know he was quite quirky and strange at times, but yet so
fascinating and ingenious. How could one NOT want to befriend him?
I could go on with so many others, but it still comes to
the simple truth that these souls who I have missed in time and space have encouraged
and empowered me in ways I may never fully comprehend. It is almost
overwhelming for me to realize the immense tapestry that is this Universe past,
present, and future and all who have, do and will occupy it with me have profound
thoughts and truths to share and I may not discover them all in my lifetime.
So, where does this culminate? It all comes back to the
very essence of the Divine – LOVE! Yes, my love for Kate was so amazing and
mind-blowing that I could not even begin to explain it to completion, but that
same love in its unique variance of friendship touches so many in my life that
it is just as mind-blowing as my love for Kate. It is just a different flavor.
I guess what I want to conclude with is that those of you who are reading this
and consider yourself my friend in one way or another, please reach out to me,
share with me yourself, your memories, your thoughts, your hopes and dreams,
and in that sharing we both will be enriched to yet a greater degree than anyone
can imagine. Be blessed, be loved, be graced in all that you do because just
like me, you are a person of immense value and worth!