I received an email from a friend the other day. A beautiful email, inquiring about love, loss, pain, etc. Here is the email I received and my response follows. It got my wheels turning in my head. Tears were cried. Memories brought up. Heaviness in my chest. Despite all these emotions, I am glad I received this thought provoking email and even more glad I found the strength to actually formulate a response...
I spend a lot of time thinking and one of the things I often think of is love. I want to learn what love is for me and what it is for others.
If you could do it all over again would you? I can tell how painful the loss of Tommy was for you. I am trying to figure out if you love someone so much that the pain is so unbearable and the absence of that person impossible to deal with to the point of you wishing you never met him/her. Not only the pain that you and your daughter (I take it that's your daughter) experience now, but taking into the consideration the pain to come.
Or is it worth the love that remains? Is the pain justified? The memories and the thoughts that still warm your heart even though he is gone.
I am trying to understand that if someone does wish they had never met that someone special that is no longer here, do they love less? Did they love at all? Is it a different love, does love fit some kind of recognizable mould? Love and loss go hand in hand with one another due to our fragile and limited existence.
Does a loved one only live on in our hearts, or do we experience them beyond this world? If they are out there somewhere Is our love strong enough to keep us connected?
My response:
I know a lot of people probably think they are with their soul mate and that their marriage or relationship is amazing and the best and I have no intention of taking that away from them. However, I truly believe Tommy was more than my soul mate. We were beyond happy, a perfect fit. He loved me for who I was and I loved him for who he was. We grew together as a team. We supported one another, pushed one another, inspired one another. Loving him was easy. Did we have arguments? Of course! Who can live with someone and not have little "fights" here and there. But our love for one another and for life was beyond infectious. We giggled like children, chased each other around the house, practiced our UFC moves on one another (he never let me win!), ecstatically planned our next adventures, and hated time a part from one another. He made me believe in love again...I had given up right before meeting him.
Would I do it all again? Absolutely! In a heart beat! I wouldn't trade anything for the days, months and years we spent together. Despite how immensely painful life is at the moment, I would never go back and change our relationship. Obviously, I would love to change what happened on that weekend but nobody has that power so I must continue to move forward as gracefully as I can. And the pain...oh the pain. I wish I didn't have to feel this pain, this struggle, this feeling of emptiness but I carry it around with me. I try to find strength in this pain. I try to smile through the pain. I tell myself that it only hurts this horrendously because our love was so deep, passionate and pure. I am the unluckiest lucky person around. There are billions of people that go through life without ever experiencing a love like what Tommy and I had. I would never want all of our sweet, sweet memories to not exist. As of now, our memories are beyond painful and come at me like brutal attacks on my heart and soul, debilitating me to a pile of tears. I am sure one day, they will warm my heart and soul like the flames of campfire on a summer night.
They say, "It is better to have loved and lost than to never loved at all." I am torn with this because it almost feels like a horribly mean joke that life has played on me. It honestly feels like the last 4 years of my life has been some sick and twisted joke...like my life was at the hands of a writer that just wrote this beautiful relationship between Tommy and I and then last minute changed their minds and erased/deleted our chapter. I don't know if that makes sense or if I am just rambling. Ultimately, I think they way we loved each other has changed me forever and has made me an incredibly better person. However, if I would have never known his love, I do believe I could have still found happiness somewhere. Would it have been as magnetic? I highly doubt it but then again, I wouldn't know what I was missing. I feel honored that I had the opportunity to love Tommy and be loved by Tommy but I feel an immense amount of resentment and anger at how things have panned out. I wonder if we never met one another if he would still be alive or if this was just his unfortunate path in life. I would give up knowing and loving him if it meant he would still be here for his family and for his daughter.
As for how loving and losing someone changes how one can love again....I cannot answer that at this point in time. I have a hard time believing that I can ever be loved or love like that again; however, I know others that have lost their husbands and some are dating, some are in love and some are even married. They tell me it's definitely not the same but they are genuinely happy even though they still carry the loss and pain of losing their husbands with them. Nothing will ever be the same...I guess once you lose someone you loved so fiercely, you will never be the same again. The mountains seem different. I seem different. The house seems different. All of these things and more are completely different now and I have a feeling they will never be the same. Just need to learn what the new "normal" is and work on acceptance.
Love after death....I think it is more than possible to continue to love someone after they have passed. I know I am still early on in my journey but I know Tommy will always be in my heart and he will always have a part of mine. I feel his presence, I have woken up to feeling his touch, I try to think what he would do in situations, I try to live the life we had imagined together, and I plan to continue doing so. I would hope that one day Tommy and I could be reunited and if and when that day comes, I doubt I will have access to a computer to let you know! All we can do is hope and love and live for fun and for free!
Much love,
Alison Fountain
P.S. I would never give up a second of our time together, Tommy. I am so sorry that you are not here to experience life and the world and the wonders of the universe. I miss you so deeply. I am so sorry. I tried everything I could to save you, my beautiful husband. I love you, Tommy Fountain. I love you forever and for always. XOXO
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