The Flip-Side

It appears the elderly couple, blissfully sojourning through life together, has struck a wistful chord in some of us...perhaps they would in all of us. Is it not an almost universal dream to find a mate, a partner, a friend and lover who will stand by us, walk with us (sometimes leading, sometimes following), someone who will always be there…always be there…to warm our side? We each need a comforting someone to hold us precious. The human heart craves to feel beloved…forever loved.

Those few, those blessed few, who find such pleasing mates tread lightly on this earth. The rest of us are left to struggle, trudging alone (or...sometimes worse... in the company of the wrong one) on rocky, wind-swept paths.

For us, this poem:

The Vow
by Galway Kinnell

When the lover
goes, the vow though
broken remains, that
trace of eternity love
brings down among us
stays, to give
dignity to the suffering
and to intensify it.

* * *

“You are my lover for life. You are my future,” she vowed. I believed her. I wanted and needed to believe. In my heart, my soul, my very marrow, I knew she was the one. How sad, how very sad, that she came to disagree.

“You are my lover for life…” Those words, her vow, will haunt me forever.

* * *

(I simply cannot gaze upon a sunflower without feeling utter devastation)