What if the earth is a womb, the soul an embryo and death a birth into eternity?  Could it be this is what Christ meant in John 3:3 (KJV) “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God?”  Our life on earth is our soul being formed in the womb of mother earth and searching for our soulmate to make us whole in the image of God in Heaven. It could also explain why Christ had to die – the cross was His final step in His preparation for assuming his resurrection body, man being reborn into eternity and of course His victory over Death.

Pat was my true love who united with me in the spirituality of sacrifice and oblation that is marriage. Ours was a sacramentally and mystically union. We became true soulmates, our souls directed together by God. We were no longer two but one as God intended.  Our love grew – as Pat said “…our marriage … I thought was getting better & better, and visualized it getting better indefinitely for the rest of our lives. I think the stronger you grow in yourself, the more you can love another person.”  By the twenty year of our marriage we suffered separation trauma when either one was away from the other over night. We had moved into the final trimester of our development for resurrection “and in the dead season / the death of the leaves. / foretells a new dawn / near our thresholds. / Incense rolls towards / the skies from the secrets / of the altars.” – (Untitled poem fragment by Patricia A. Bow 1983?)

Over the years our love grew stronger and stronger and we two grew more alike. It helped that we started out very alike. She started out as a better person than I as well as a happier person. I think I grew both in caring and happiness. But Pat wasn’t always pleased especially when she saw some of my mother creeping around in me. In middle age Pat seemed to pick up my melancholia and self doubt. I’m sorry I had that effect on the beautiful person she was. Pat passed away Saturday, January 7, 2017 at 5 pm.  Now I feel she has peace even as she sometimes shows frustration with me.

The loss of a spouse makes you feel entirely alone and incomplete. The sense of feeling like you have lost an essential part of yourself is both painful and disconcerting. But I believe in the sacrament of marriage where God joins two entities into one and that although, death separates the physical entities, the spiritual entity made by God remains united; half in my heart the other half in heaven. I believe this with all my being; I really haven’t lost Patricia I have gained Christ; I am one with her in the arms of Christ in Heaven and she is still one with me in my heart. Now that should bring closure and great joy, right? So, why am I still grieving? I want her touch, kisses and words now more than ever. The tears are mostly for the loss of these. I rejoice in her PEACE and in the prospect of once again being fully one with her in Heaven.

I believe that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing, shall be able to separate us (that is Pat and I) from the love of God and from each other united in Holy Matrimony. And I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our mortal bodies into a resurrection body, that be like unto His glorious body.

Yes, I believe that Pat and I are not even separated by the death of Pat, since her spirit continues to live with me not yet deceased. And this continues until my death, when we meet again and reunite and loving each other more tenderly than before because we are in eternity. I believe that Pat really does dwell within me and I dwell within her. Her presence is getting stronger every day! Love is stronger than death. I also believe our love is continuing to grow ever stronger.

Every time I am depressed and feeling low, Pat comforts me. She shows me her poems or what poems she was reading, she sends me a pleasant dream, she types a message on that screen I sometimes see in the haze of waking up, she kisses or touches me… How can I doubt she dwells within me and I dwell within her? We will dwell in our place in heaven for ever more. My cup over flows. She is for me the good shepherd’s servant,

I do not have to come all the way to Pat in Heaven, because she is also coming to me. I already have that empty hole in me to let her in. We are still two individuals united into one trinity by marriage and love. Our love is still growing stronger as is her presence in me. Pat is not here physically and that does make me feel lonely but, our most precious memories are still within me and it is easier now to call them up at well. Pat, I love you forever.