Teilhard de Chardin 10/26/07

(We were meditating on his eloquent statement
of consenting to be diminished in God as he aged and died.)
...
I watched my wife slowly die for five years,
Her death is a terrible mystery I cannot solve.
Her death is my Kaaba, I circle
in reverence and confusion,
anxious for revelation.
But no revelation comes;
the mystery remains.

She left without any dramatic declarations.
I think she was surprised and chagrined
that her prayers, our prayers, would not be answered.
When that became clear, she faced it,
went to bed and quietly finished it.
I faced it with disbelief and anxiety.
It was only later that I also gathered in anger, sadness,
regret, and bitterness.
The disbelief ("help me in my unbelief")
rests on a bedrock sense of inequity:
It should have been me.
She wanted to live, she had reasons to live,
while I live as a hapless reflex, passing the time.
I am uncomfortable in this world,
as beautiful as it is,
and find people vexing.

There is nothing new in these feelings.
Everyone left behind has them.
"I hear you lost your wife" my voice echoes,
"I lost mine, too, just over a year."
(while inside, the time
has become meaningless.
It feels like it happened yesterday,
and like it happened long ago;
it never happened, it's happening now,
and it is eternal).

Her death is my Kaaba,
I circle and circle
in reverence and confusion,
anxious for revelation.
But no revelation comes:
the mystery, and I (for now), remain.