Why do I feel so lonely? I desperately yearn for Pat’s physical company. Oh, I feel her Real presence and I am in communion with her; the result of me dwelling in her and she dwelling in me. There are pictures of her in every room and I walk around talking to her. Why isn’t this enough?
We are born into a physical world and are dependant on our senses to relate to that world. We are bombarded by sight, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting. We can’t cope without at least some of these stimulations from the physical world. They drown out the spiritual; that is why we have so much trouble meditating and communing with God. I am physically alone (except for the friendly new tabby replacing Pooka) but still hear the traffic which draws me out of my meditations. What I miss is the physical her – the her I became dependant on in 48 years of marriage. I am sure Pat understood this when she wished to live the life of a hermit with me beside her. I’m scared to admit it but, she probably would be happier in my present situation than I am: it is very much like the hermit life with the silent, physically unseen and unheard presence of my spouse within me.
Loneliness is being alone when you desire otherwise. I desperately want Patricia – her words, her touch, her kisses, her physical being – back. So, I am lonely. That is the very definition of being lonely. It is a desolate feeling of being left behind, and being all alone forever. There is a Pat sized hole in my heart, which I cannot live with or without. It is all my memories of Patricia which I never want to lose. Those memories are happy memories though I cry.
In our marriage, there was a deep inner sense of a quiet deep love at its centre. It continues as the uninterrupted center of both of us. Our love continues to grow stronger. To the doubter, NO I don’t need to get over my grief and pass on: Pat and I love each other forever, ours is an eternal marriage. Love is stronger than death. Not everything ends in death. Our marriage is Pat and I and US. Marriage is created in the image of God. In heaven, Pat and I will be truly like the triune God – a trinity. Christ’s resurrection did not end his love for the Father, it strengthens the Holy Ghost or so I believe.
Pat’s 12th Anniversary Poem says it all:
I know the scent and shape of you:
I know you all, yet not at all.
I linger with a connoisseur’s delight
over a contour of bone, a texture of skin,
gloating over treasures of silk and ivory
that are mine alone,
and yet no-one’s but yours.

For you and I are so entwined
that we can read each other’s mind
at times, a simple exercize.
Then comes the stumble of surprise
when, reaching out in haste, I find
the stranger self behind your eyes.

Far apart upon the lawn,
two tall trees confront each other
never to touch, ever alone:
yet beneath the grass and stone
intertwined their roots have grown,
so intimately webbed together,
neither one can tell his own.

So with us: which flatly proves
futility of arguments
On which is which, and whose is whose.

We are the one eternal united entity we vowed to become in our marriage vows. Pat and I love each other forever. No I won’t be lonely forever. That will disappear when we are united in Heaven.