By Gary Gleason
Love is in the air! This month, we celebrate the enduring power of love to overcome any obstacle. So often, romantic love gets the focus, but what about the stories of how love can carry us through difficult times, challenges and all that life has to throw at us?
The following story is from VOICES Radio Hour’s Feb. 14 episode on KDNK at 6pm, featuring stories of love overcoming all things. Visit voicesrfv.org/voices-radio-hour to listen to the full episode and all previous “VOICES Radio Hour” episodes.
Carolyn and I met at Victoria’s Coffee Shop in Aspen in October of 2013. The attraction was instantaneous. Palpable. Mutual. As the hours slipped by, I asked if I could scoot her stool closer to mine. Our knees touching. Electric.
Afterwards I talked about the date with my bestie and showed him the selfie we had taken. He was like, “You guys look pretty couply.”
“She is just six months out of a 20-year marriage. I’m just happy to have my turn,” I replied.
He looked at me sideways and repeated, “You guys look pretty couply.” Sometimes our friends see our lives more clearly than we do.
Turns out Carolyn and I were cut from the same cloth, on so many levels. Our love of music. Our love of travel. Our love of adventure. Our love of time in nature. Our need for personal space. Our ideas about money. Our ideas about spirituality. Our childlike demeanor. The love we felt for our children. The challenges we faced in our first marriages. Even what foods we liked and hated. It was kind of spooky sometimes, honestly.
It was no time at all before Carolyn’s things filled my closets, and her laughter filled my halls. For the next 11 years, we were inseparable — initially with her tagging along on all my business trips, so I would not have to be away from her for more than a few hours. Later, the two of us traveled some 40 countries, navigating dozens of multi-day river trips, moving to Maui for a time, writing an amazing spirituality book, playing together in her band, mentoring our kids and building a huge circle of friends.
Last summer, Carolyn and I were riding our townie bikes to meet friends for the Fourth of July parade when someone opened their car door without looking. Carolyn never regained consciousness and crossed the rainbow bridge eight days later, myself and her best friend, Kristin Case, by her side. It has been seven months and two days, and I still cannot comprehend these words.
It is a true blessing that the last words between Carolyn and me, just seconds before the accident, were about how much we love each other and how lucky we are. It has been a privilege to honor Carolyn’s memory in words, monuments, ceremonies and songs.
She continues to lay across my path astonishing “signs” of her continued presence in the ethers. But damn…
After the accident our house remained a museum — her photos, her things, a constant reminder. The time came to make space for a new life, unwanted and unasked for, but at my door just the same. Life has a way of asserting itself, regardless of our acceptance.
I held a “dress party” for her dear friends, that they may continue to enjoy her many hats and handbags and shoes and outfits. Those few things I kept are now in the office closet so I can “visit but not live there,” so to speak.
I have found that grief is an onion. It gives purpose, peeling the layers back to find the deeper you. But like an onion, the process makes you cry. So much resistance. I came to realize that I was grieving several deaths simultaneously: all that light and joy that was Carolyn; who I was with her; who we were together; and all the special moments, places and inside-jokes we shared. Each of these a death of its own. Each a forced renaissance. I have learned that we bend and flex for our partner in ways we don’t even recognize. And now the tree of my soul springs back in its most authentic, natural expression… similar but different from any previous me. Hard to recognize my inner landscape.
As I rejoin the world, bit by bit, I sometimes struggle to embrace the mystery and to remain present. But I am excited to embody this deep work in all my relationships, including with the next love of my life… who, as far as I know, I have yet to meet. Or, perhaps, have already met but do not yet recognize. Life is so weird!
Turns out that while love persists forever, tomorrow is never promised. So my bidding to you, on this day of love, is to be here now and be not afraid to show your love to those you cherish.