What's In A Name?

My Dear Beloved,

It’s been a minute, but has it? The graveled path holds tight to your tread, and the spider’s spin awaits to smother your face. The neatly pressed suits in the closet swung freely like trapeze artists into a box for delivery. I drove you to the office, so new civilian military can wear your bow ties. Dozens of freshly buffed shoes walked with purpose into grateful hands, and I drove away. It was movement even though small because well, movement keeps the eggs from sticking.

Recently, I introduced myself to an acquaintance at church as Chris’ wife, and she stopped me. Not in the lemon juice paper cut kind of way, but more in a jammy Zinfandel with a spicy kick sort of shock. She said I had a name and could lead with it. I sucked on that caramel for a while and mulled it over. What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet according to Juliet. The hard caught in your throat sound of “K” in Chris and Kathryn doesn’t have the same ring in the presence of silence. So where do I go from here?

I long to hear. Something. Your sing songy voice, the clang of pans in the kitchen, or the shake of jeans as you folded laundry. When the background tick of the clock grows weary and the hum of the lights sing the same pitch, I strain for sound.

God is now my husband. We chat, the three of us, and many times I invite you in, too, because you and God currently share the same fishing hole and watch the salmon slip through the bear paws while the sunlight splashes the stream. The space is green and lush with lichen ruffles and mushrooms stump for stools from what I’ve heard. Professor Willard is teaching me how to listen and hear….again…because it’s hard, and I’ve got the space to knit my thoughts together. And, God’s been kind, and of course, surprising, because He’s the Wizard of Wonder.

Where is He taking me? Who will I become in this next chapter of my restory? I ask and submit to His will, and I wait. One morning I shouted at Him. Sleep is so cruel and a character of mystery. It draws the dark clouds with the edges of light while we shut down and dream of the canyons. We do not control when we drift off at night and when we awake to red skies at morn. I no longer set an alarm and still I see light. It’s disappointing. The slide of sleep descends and reaches towards the earth where I find my feet planted. I stand on the ground with another day in front and see the silence of your side of the bed where pillows remain untouched and sheets stand stiff at attention. Oh, Petite Prince, you fly towards the planets strung out with the birds with a scarf caught among the stars. How is the sparkle and how does weightlessness feel?

And yet, that word yet…..something that is presumed to happen….I wake up and start in obedience. It is God’s day not mine, and He opened my eyes for something. So, I move forward. My movement looks different than yours. After six months of Abi’s passing, you found a new home, spread her ashes, walked the AT, and then, crashed into me. How could you? How did you with such speed? I couldn’t. I haven’t. Of course, we’re different, and a friend said as much, but it’s still dizzying. I’m learning though to continue saying “Yes” as you taught me, professor; to walk through any door and to wonder any path. Dreaming is too hard and full of future, but I consider, and this is where the need to hear comes in, and the shouting I mentioned.

He comes in a whisper, but I need the whack! Pleading one morning to shake the trees and hear the rustle of crisp baked leaves, I walked towards you; discouraged and wilted from the one way dialogue of myself. This albatross day with my heavy cracked heart I turned to your path in the woods. The rock of your words, a headstone of love, has become my healing place. “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral,” according to Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the author of The Little Prince. Painted stones of hearts to crabs to flowers come and go from who knows who, and I love the story they tell. One divet of calcite creates just the right spot for the prompt of the next plot line. And, there it was. Days without a prompt rock, He spoke.

I wept.

I will not explain it away, or put it in a neat little comfort box tied with silk ribbon to share with someone who thinks it’s nice. It will rest in my pocket to balance the weight of the grief stone you left late spring. Transferring my desideratum of you to Him should be simple because you lived in love and He is love, but it’s hard just like stone.

I am happy to be Charles Simic’s Stone though and feel the weight of the cow, so we can be the spark starters. Maybe our shared star charts will show your straight path of the prince. Stones turn precious with extreme heat and pressure, so I lean into the strength of I AM.

“I am” going “to be” is the quandary at hand, and John gives me a glimpse of what beauty will come. In Revelation it says, “…and I will give him(her) a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it."

What will my new name be, and where will it take me? Only I will know, but since you’re with Him, you’ll be privy to it, too. See you when I wake, my love.

Always with,

Kathryn