A Chance Meeting

m. and I had a chance meeting last night at the place where I take American Tribal Style bellydance.  I did so well in class; my teacher said I was really mastering the moves.  It had been a mystical night in all ways; I saw a silver fox crossing the road as I drove towards class, a brief flash of amethyst light out of nowhere, and a pale, silent owl, perhaps a barn owl, flying across the road as the rain began to fall.  It pounded down during class; we could hear it drumming on the roof and the drumming matched the movements of our hips.

I left class happy, and as I was walking out, the place nearly deserted, I suddenly saw m. in my mind's eye, like an apparition, a perfect image.  As I walked down the sidewalk, m. himself emerged, quite literally, almost as if he materialized out of the gray mist, the way the silver fox had done a couple of hours before on the dark road. His eyes, truly the most clear and beautiful ones I have ever seen, looked enormous, owl eyes, their blue nearly visible in the half-light.  The brief greetings we passed to each other were cordial and not angry.  I had been afraid of him for nearly an entire griefstricken year.  Last night I realized my fear was my own, stupid and baseless, the phantom of my imaginings, the way most fears seem to be.  I told him I was doing great but hope he didn't think I was doing great without him:  I walked forward this year with a sword of loss stuck in my heart.  I am alive and my mind is restored, and my granddaughter is safe in my life: that is the "great."  But there is always the loss of my dearest friend, something that never leaves, though I have found a way to carry it gracefully, as best I can.

When I die, I have asked Spirit for a particular heaven: to give me the life I wanted with him: I want my afterlife to be this above all else: a life where we meet as young people, marry, bear children, and grow old together, that this heaven will include the freedom from every sad thing that ever happened to us.  I am sure his particular heaven will be something quite different from mine, but I do think Spirit gives us scenarios and such in the afterlife that are made from our consciousness and our deepest wishes.

I never want to express another angry thought or word towards this man for the rest of my life.  He is, at heart, the most tender, gentle, kind soul I have ever met, who has suffered in ways I could never imagine in a thousand lifetimes.  That I added to this suffering is something I will regret and feel pain for, for the rest of my life.  I will not allow this pain to rule my life, but I wear it always, the way people tattoo a branch of blossoms over an indelible scar.

Why must we sometimes hurt the people we love the very most, without meaning to?  And how is it that, again and again, the same people, more often than not, come to forgive one another? How is it that acting with kindness instead of hatred is such a small step, after all? I think it is because people have infinite capacities for good, for being larger than the sum of their mistakes and smallnesses, that all it sometimes takes is the tiniest measure of resolve to make an ocean of kindness appear.

 This, I think, is one of many things that makes life miraculous.