Dear Steele: I have a heart like Swiss cheese. Empty space in the hole you left, like the crater lake of the Taupo Volcano, surrounded by solid rock energy erupting with love for what my senses can still perceive. The doctor says the hole will get smaller over time, but it’ll never completely go away.
I wonder what the hole will fill up with: more cheese. He says it doesn’t fill up: the mass of love all around it puts pressure on the hole, compressing it, causing it to shrink. Sometimes the rock walls collapse causing multiple holes to join up. Sometimes the rock is really scar tissue, congesting traffic, impeding the flow of energy, so it takes a while for the love to flow through, to build up pressure. At any moment though, with an eruption of loss, the emptiness can grow and cause the hole to expand.
I’m supposed to learn to carry my sadness, to negotiate with it, put it in my back pocket and sit on it, perhaps pass gas through it. I want to immunize myself from sadness. They say it’s not possible, because no matter how sick a person is, or how distant a person may be, death always comes all of a sudden, in a moment to soon. I’m convinced there must be a way. I’ve already taken a vaccine.
When my body gets to know the sadness, what happens if it starts to feel good? Sadness feels like the world is full of static, no perceptible sounds, just noise. Every now and then I tune in and pick up a clear frequency. I hear myself laugh. I see myself smile. I wake up and go to work. And then I lose the signal and the static comes back. What will become of this hole in my heart?
So much to learn. So much to do. Am I too old to be a child?