“He loved you.”

Three simple words, spoken by a grieving widow, and yet they linger in my mind like they hung in the room at the funeral home. The man of whom she spoke, the man who had loved me, lay on the other side of the room in a box. It had been decorated with flowers and shiny handles so people wouldn’t think of it that way, but she and I both knew that it was, after all was stripped away, just a box.

I have to admit that, even though I tried hard not to, I cried a little as I walked away. And I soon realized that those three words had left with me. It seemed that everywhere I went, everywhere I looked, they were there. They were in the brush of the wind, the heat of the sun, the chill of the night. Everything seemed to echo what the widow had said.

“He loved you.”

But he was gone, and, so too, his love. At least that’s how it felt. I cried again, this time to God. Why? It was the best I could do, and yet no better than a child who didn’t get his way. Why does the love go? Why, when the ones we have loved and who have loved us are gone, does the love seem gone, too?

“He loved you.” Loved. Past tense, not present; once was, now isn’t. Loved. The word is itself one of ending. It is a word of finality.

Peace – Part II tomorrow…