You Promised Me!

I arrived at the meeting room early, like usual. I'm chronically early. Obsessively early. Maybe even pathologically early. I can't help it. I hate being late.

I looked through the doorway and there, across an empty room, I saw her. In my head, at that instant, I heard a voice. Calm, assertive, definite.

"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."

The voice was so real, so tangible, that it never occurred to me to question its origin or purpose.

"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."

Oh, no. Not me. No way.

"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."

Relationships don't work. I've tried them. No way.

"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."

Leave me alone. I'm not interested.

"This is the person you will spend the rest of your life with."

Is it any wonder that, eleven years later, when I found myself sitting by her bedside, watching her in her coma, listening to the machine that was forcing air into her body, praying she wouldn't die, that I would look up to the heavens and scream, "You promised me!"

About “The Wisdom of Harry “

This is a comment about the story "The Wisdom of Harry". If you haven't read it, please do that first and then return here.

When Harry told me "you just do", it left me feeling frustrated. I wanted words of comfort, promises of salvation, something, anything to hang onto. But Harry knew, as I know now, and as I suppose I realized deep inside of me then, that there were no promises to be made. Not ones that could be kept, anyway. Life is uncertain. Things change. We adjust. We bend. Yes, some people break. But most don't. We are, after all, self healing beings.

What I found is that time and life create a healing scab. Difficult to hear when you are in the middle of your pain. But it's easier to live through those times if you can share them with someone else. Find a good listener, someone with whom you can share your feelings. Tell that person you don't need any feedback from them. You just want them to listen, and hold you if you ask them to. You just need to know that you are not alone in this world, that someone hears your cries.

You don't need fixing, so tell your listener to give you no feedback. As Harry knew, there is nothing to say that wouldn't ultimately be false or shallow. When you are in your grief you are in a very private place because no one can truly know what you are feeling. I can tell you that you'll make it through, that the pain will lessen, that someday you will smile again, but you won't believe it from where you are. Your world has collapsed and I wouldn't try to sugar coat that because, in those dark and lonely nights of the soul, you would see through me.

"You just do." Yes, it's true You just do make it through. It's a process, but you do make it through. It's been eight years now since I heard those words. They ring in my head every time I face a challenge, because they are the truest, most honest, most valuable words I have ever heard in my life.

You just do.