Will I Always Feel So Maimed?
"When She Loved Me" - Written by Randy Newman, Performed by Sarah McLachlan
(nominated for Best Song Oscar, 1999)
When somebody loved me, Everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together lives within my heart
And when she was sad,I was there to dry her tears
And when she was happy,So was I
When she loved me
Through the summer and the fall / We had each other, that was all
Just she and I together,Like it was meant to be
And when she was lonely,I was there to comfort her
And I knew that she loved me
So the years went by / I stayed the same
But she began to drift away / I was left alone
Still I waited for the day / When she'd say I will always love you
Lonely and forgotten, I'd never thought she'd look my way
And she smiled at me and held me just like she used to do
Like she loved me...When she loved me
When somebody loved me...Everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together lives within my heart
When she loved me.
Spring and May will bring about Joshua's birthday again. He was the only child of mine that I will ever have. My line ends with me. Though the above song doesn't really fit I find the aching hurt it depicts matches my own.
And I feel so used up, worn out, damaged beyond repair. I feel like Frodo after saving the Shire only to be haunted by past failures and injuries so badly he can't enjoy living in that world anymore. Alas, he found solace in the uttermost West w/ the elves. But that is a fairy tale and there is no place to go to find the kind of deep healing I need. I need to be un-maimed not just temporarily repaired.
That requires a miracle.
I know that others have lost loved ones and suffered much in this world too. But that does not comfort me. It only deepens my sorrow knowing that so many are maimed as I feel I am. We may pretend to be whole and even find a way to deceive ourselves and others with a prosthetic limb.
But we are NOT whole.
We have survived something that is SO wrong. We were not made to die but to live. Death is a usurper who invades and wrongfully steals away those we love. There is no comfort for that. Pretending it is natural and "the cycle of life" doesn't make it the truth, nor does it lessen the severity of the injury to those left behind. Death may serve as a relief for the very young or the Faithful but it is nothing but a thieving unnatural monster to those who remain behind. It maims us and leaves us to slowly suffer with our wounds.
And if we turn to God He can stop the bleeding and teach us to live again.
But on this side of the Veil we are always a little crippled, a little less than what we were, a little more ...damaged goods.
That's why people hold you at arm's length. You are damaged goods. Why should they have you in their lives? You remind them of a truth they fear, find unpleasant and don't really understand.
I don't begrudge them that.
Let them live on whole w/out knowing the monsters. I was once that way myself.
But still, it is so very lonely.
Is this all there is? Is there nothing more?
I don't believe that I am trying to vainly have my old life back. It wasn't so great. My life now is far better in so many ways (mostly material though).
I have learned that as we turn the page on each chapter of our life, it is both exciting and sorrowful. We gain the new and lose so much in the exchange. I understand this and realize you can't go backwards and have things be the way they were. It is gone forever.
I think it is about feeling so ruined. So much less than what I once was. This too will pass, I suppose.
But I think I will still feel diminished.
I think I will always be maimed.
Is there any healing left for me?