On learning of Mathew’s death I am often told by people that I am courageous.Right from the start this well meant compliment has never landed comfortably ..
My usual response is a clumsy attempt to explain how this loss does not automatically qualify and define me as more courageous than the next person….
You see, I never willingly volunteered for these circumstances. They happened on me as they invariably will, in some guise or other, on most of us eventually.
The bare truth of it is that if you love you are always just one phone call away from your knees…and that ,on the time horizon of life, my loss is therefore completely vanilla flavored …common to all lovers..
The thrust of what I’m saying is that loss is not voluntary…had I volunteered for the grief , then I could feasibly accept the badge of courage many are so willing to pin on me. .but having had little say in the circumstances assigned to me I have no option but to decline the medal…
You see no love is possible without the experience of loss. .
The key to who is truly courageous… who should get a medal at the end of this journey….has a lot more to do with love than it does with loss..
Because choosing to love...truly, genuinely love. .. that IS voluntary…
Loving another soul …. a child.. a spouse… a friend … involves consciously exposing yourself to the possibility of loss…making yourself vulnerable in the greatest way possible… assuming responsibility and accountability to another...and to yourself…
To love requires selflessness…and discipline… and hope…
To choose to love another is to exercise courage...
So ... today… I am handing the medal of courage to all of you who have chosen to love….
…those of you that have extended yourselves beyond the limits of your own souls and invested in the souls of others… those who know what it like to step out of the boat and live at the fringes of our existence where love alone can bind us and allow us to truly connect … a place where intimacy and companionship and comfort and pain and loss all exist simultaneously.
After all this is what we were made for.
This is where we were created to be.
