The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Love Sorrow

Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must 

take care of what has been 

given. Brush her hair, help her

into her little coat, hold her hand,

especially when crossing a street.

[...] 

She is strange, mute, difficult, 

sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.

And amazing things can happen. And you may see, 

as the two of you go 

walking together in the morning light, how 

little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;

she begins to grow.

-- Mary Oliver, Red Bird

Tonight I find that I don't know how to do this. And I don't like doing it Here rather than There. Perhaps I ought to love Sorrow, but her strangeness, muteness, difficulty, unmanageableness are difficult to get to know.

I miss being fretted over. I miss the phone calls to make sure I hadn't died while I was walking in the park, to make sure I hadn't fallen asleep during my dark drive on the highway from Binghamton to Bainbridge. 

There are so many things I miss that I fear to start naming them. 

I just re-read some of the many cards that I had hung on the doorframes and archways in my apartment after Dad died to help fend off the dark with their bits of light. So many words, so many beautiful friends. It does help to have ink and paper in my hands again, to remember the words.

I don't know what it is about tonight. I can't stop replaying those days of disbelief, the hours spent in the hospital desperately trying to know this father God gave me as deep as I could before he left. Remembering the big, crinkly hands that didn't work to feed himself. I was happy to use mine instead. A barrage of stills, snippets of memory playing again and again. 

It still doesn't seem real.

And Psalm 23 strikes a part of me it hadn't touched before.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. 

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: 
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

for Thou art with me;

Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: 

Thou anointest my head with oil;

my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.