Being There

Princes come, Princes go,
An hour of pomp and show they know;
Princes come and over the sands,
And over the sands of time they go.
Wise men come,
Ever promising the riddle of life to know,
Wise men come, Ah,
But over the sands.
The silent sands of time they go.
Lovers come, Lovers go.
And all that there is to know
Lovers know; Only lovers know.
—-Written by Robert Wright and George Forrest

“LOVE”
Perhaps the most abused / mis-used word
in English or any other language

This is about what actual love truly is: Being There.

While love does include the usual stuff: moonlit walks, cuddling on sofas, even fancy fucking but actual love is not limited to these and the other popular artifacts of rom-coms and teen and young adult years.

The first time I came up against one of the realities of actual love was a mere three years after my marriage to a beautiful, gifted woman with the body of a model and the voice of an angel. A malignant growth on a kidney required its removal and the surgeon told me she had five years to live. Fortunately he was wrong and fifty-three years later she is still with me. (This was the first of three times doctors have “given” her five years, last time it was over twelve years ago. But I digress.)

At that point in my lack of maturity, when she was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, I simply didn’t know what to do. The idea of just “being there” never occurred to me. So even though as her husband I could have stayed longer, I was relieved each time visiting hours were over.

To quote David French’s recent column in The New York Times (which inspired this essay): “Simply being there was all that had been required. I couldn’t pass even that one simple test.”

Though there are exceptions I believe this idea of “being there” is much more of a problem with men than it is with women. The fairer sex has more empathy built in than we masculine troglodytes. And yet we can learn as I did. It took many years and lots of coaching from the wonder full woman who has stuck with me all that time. (Well, most of it but that’s another story.)

Elizabeth is an expert at Being There. She is such a creature of Love that without doing or saying anything the Love she exudes is palpable by the person to whom she directs her light and energy. I cannot explain it but I do “get” it and have learned to do my own version of it.

I cannot tell you how to do it but I believe that it’s simply a matter of focused consciousness. With that idea you may figure it out or, better yet, be there.