Heart broken

Heart broken

You never forget
the sense of whole-ness
that you knew when your mother was
here.
Like the smell of freshly baked bread
the reality of loss is easily accessed.
Sick and broken without her,
 you trudge through a morass
 of life eternally tinged
 by absence.

 Nothing can ever be the same again.

 © Marjorie H Morgan 2014

It's constant

I can think of at least three avenues to the same feeling:

A - Having never known something yet still having the feeling that something important is missing in your life – there is a gap.

B – Having briefly experienced a sense of completion and then letting it go before fully understanding it – the void will always be painful.

C – Having a close relationship with someone or something that is suddenly removed from your sphere – the bottom drops out.

All of these lead to a feeling of constant absence.

Homecomings - DADT

Homecomings are times of celebration. These are great occasions when the people who have been away return home. They return to a place of safety and comfort. A place where all barriers have been removed, all formalities have been taken away and you can relax and be yourself. Homecomings are occasions when the ones who have been away are greeted with joy by those who have remained and also happily reacquaint themselves with those other travellers who are returning to the familiar base. Well, that is the theory…

I knew that there was a homecoming anniversary gathering and I was going home. Yet I was nervous for a multitude of reasons. The relaxation that should have accompanied me was missing. The barriers that I hope were absent were present and the formal behaviour replaced the friendship that used to easily exist.

I went back to my home church to celebrate 50 years since the building had been dedicated for worship. I was greeted, with genuine affection, by several people. I had expected their continued friendship; we had kept in touch over the years. I was also met by sideward glances and frosty practiced smiles on an otherwise bright and beautiful day by those who evidently didn’t expect or want to see me there. 34 years ago my family moved to the area and joined the local church. We grew up in that environment. It was my home.

The day of celebration was punctuated with songs, readings and gifts to recognise long service within the church. The rolls of honour were read. People were applauded, lauded and honoured for their contributions to the Christian ministry and local community. I did not go there that day with expectations of any reward, and I was sat there quietly enjoying the shared memories until my son, who was sat beside me during the ceremony, spoke and it was then that I really acknowledged the missing evidence of my presence in the records.

Morgan was listening to the list of officers who had taken part in the youth club over the years and when they finished reading and were stepping down from the platform, he looked at me, aghast, and said, to everyone and no-one in particular – in what I thought was quite a loud voice – “What about my Mum?”

Embarrassed feet shuffled and heads turned away.

I hugged him and said “Never mind, darling. I know I was there. God knows why they left me out.”

The same thing happened again and again. One after another groups that I belonged to reformed without me. Some people suggested I go and join them on the platform. I laughed at the idea of a mass exodus if I went to the front of the church. I declined politely and remained where I was. The church authorities, in their wisdom, could not see me so I chose to remain invisible to them that day.

My nephew, who now lives in Swansea, and who also grew up in the church community decided not to attend – for his own reasons. When he called me on my return home he asked a simple question.

“Well, how did they treat you?”

“They ignored me for the most part, Daniel,” I said, with a deep sigh. “To be expected I guess. I don’t fit in their picture. They can’t bring themselves to tell me outright to keep away, however they can choose to publicly ignore my contributions.”

I mainly went to support my sister and another nephew who have remained in the area and who are alienated within the church, but my presence seemed to exacerbate the situation - being part of my family means that they are treated as contaminated as well. My link with them is also a constant reminder of my ‘leper’ status within the church ‘family’.

My home is not with them.

There will be no future homecoming events for me with people who don’t acknowledge the person that I am. I’m sure that Christ, the Man the church congregation claims to follow, would not agree with the estrangement of His family members.

I broke the cardinal rule with them years ago. I ignored the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law. When homophobia was rife in the groups I was part of I stood up and said I found it offensive and unChrist-like. I outed myself, and they’ve never got used to it. They cannot accept that the person they loved and played with through all those years is gay.

It’s not my problem. It’s theirs.

I am home now.

I know why I live so far from them now. I know why for the first time in three decades I haven’t moved every three years; I have now stayed in one place for 14 years. I have found a home and I keep coming back to it.

I don’t need their homecoming to celebrate my existence. I do that everyday when I awaken in my peaceful haven.

I am home.

Watery sunsets

Streams of unbidden tears are my company tonight. I know why … because I miss you. Several sunsets have faded into darkness since I last saw you.

Time changes shape and length with my memories.

I thought I was over you.

I thought I had healed my heart.

Alas, your absence floods every space in my limitless soul.

What a mysterious thing is love. What a marvellous gift you shared with me. I used to be sceptical but now I know that magic is real.

You showed me.

You opened not only my eyes but my heart and mind.

Since we have been apart ...

I have busied myself and buried myself in busyness.

What I thought was past crept up without warning and again assaulted my heart with sweet, tender memories of the utter joy of loving and being loved by you.

You relaxed me, excited me, challenged me and fulfilled me.

I miss your touch in my life.

Missing

Sometimes I really miss people.

You know that feeling you get that you can’t explain properly. That feeling that something is not quite right, or rather slightly amiss. What I think I mean is that it is not quite as you’d like it to be – right then, in that particular moment - to enable you to be entirely comfortable.

Well it’s sort of like that but a lot worse. It’s like an ache from a newly missing tooth. It’s like an emptiness that cannot be filled. It’s like a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that you can't find right there and then.

It is not a feeling of desperation.

It is more a feeling of gentle longing.

A feeling of comfort.

Like wanting to have a hot serving of that delicious steamed sponge pudding - spotted dick.

Like sitting huddled in a blanket in your childhood bedroom listening to the rain falling while you read Enid Blyton books under the covers.

Like lying on a garden bench, looking up at the clouds and imagining the shapes are all kinds of real things.

And, sometimes, this feeling of missing someone is something so new that you don’t quite have the right memory for it. But you know that you feel a strange void. You know that you want to refresh your memory of that person.

I feel that I want to be at peace in their company again. Nothing more. Just to share the same space at the same time.

Maybe also share a smile.

Maybe have an easy conversation.

Maybe just relax to background music.

Maybe notice the beauty of a flower on a spring day.

The feeling appears unexpectedly and … sometimes lingers.

Because something, someone, is missing …

Ebbs and flows

A river is said to ebb and flow.

It goes backwards and forwards.

So it is with my life sometimes. There is a decline in my emotional state followed or preceded by an emotional high – a forward motion. I often experience a seesaw effect.

There are many positive times, when the river is flowing, when it is present, when all is right with the world. The sun is shining – even in the winter, and the birds are singing cheerful songs outside my window as I snuggle up to the warmth inside.

And then there is the season of the ebb, the decline, the absence, when hope seems to have flowed away with the tide. At these times all I am aware of, all I am conscious of is the uncomfortable rocks, stones and pebbles at the bottom of the riverbed that I feel on the soles of my bare feet.

It is tempting to remember the ebbs in my life more than the flow as when I am in the drought it seems more pronounced. When I am visited by the reality of a lack in my life I stop and think. Sadness often accompanies these thoughts as my heart becomes thirsty for whatever it is I am missing at the time. This is usually the company of a particular person. A person who no longer features in my life in the way I wish they did. At times like this I either go into myself or reach out to friends.

© Marjorie H Morgan

I fight against my own internal tide. It is often hard to make myself reach out when I feel vulnerable, but I am learning to do so. It has proved to be better for me to talk to someone when I feel low. Failing communicating my feelings to a friend, sometimes accompanied by tears and halting sentences, I will find another activity to take my mind of the subject. I know that dwelling on that dry area, that past area, of my life will not bring forth fruit for me in my present presence so I make a resolution:

right now I grasp the weakness in me and send it out to sea.

If I stay with my sad memories I am allowing the matters that I am pondering to become a major part of my internal life. By constantly including the sadness in my thoughts I am giving it the ability to change me. It’s never easy, but it does get less painful with time. Even where I am now, how I feel today, I never thought that I’d reach this position when I first stood in the dry riverbed with only my tears for company. I know I still have a long way to go, but I feel I am moving in the right direction. A positive healthy destination for me.

When my life has swung towards the ebbing times I have reached back into my memory for an occasion when I felt presence not absence. A time when I was conscious of happiness in the ordinary things of everyday life. I reach into my immense sea of happy memories and reflect the blissful moments that I have experienced …and there are so many.

I have a tendency to forget this fact or not want to remember it when I am clouded with sadness. But it is usual that by the time I have revisited and enjoyed these events, the experience that seemed like a dry riverbed will have passed away.

And I will again be present in the bountiful flow of my life.

I will be the river that reshapes my own landscape.

© Marjorie H Morgan