ABSENCE

No one seems to know who it was who astutely observed that absence makes the heart grow fonder. It was no doubt someone who was away from his/her beloved and suddenly realized just how deep that love truly was. And that love grew even deeper as the length of the absence was extended. If no one had ever made that observation before, each one of us could have. We’ve all been there. Sometimes we truly need to be away from the one we love in order to realize just how deep our love truly is. This is true not only of our relationships with people but also with places and times as well.

On the other hand, the obverse can be just as true. For instance, there are times in our lives when the present may not be what we remember the past to have been. And so we read into the past, because we are absent from it, perhaps more than was there. We long to go back to the old days, the old place, the former times and circumstances because we perceive them to have been so grand and glorious – or at least better than what now is. Perhaps they truly were. Perhaps.

Yet there is one absence from which there is no return. We can neither go back in time nor can the future fill the void. The absence is permanent and all we have left to hold onto are the memories of the one we loved and who loved us. Such is the reality of the death of someone we love. We will be absent from the other until we meet again in eternity. In the meantime there is a void that will not be filled. Again, what is true about the absence of a beloved is also true about other past loves: other people, other places, other times.

It is trite even though it is often also quite true that time heals the wounds of the separation. Time does, but it also leaves a scar. The wound of the temporal loss of the loved one may be healed. It is no longer an open wound. The pain is gone, or at least most of it, but the scar remains, the reminder of the loved one whom we can no longer hold and hold onto to see us through our dark nights and lonely days. When we rub that scar, some pain comes back to the surface, if only for the moment.

Some may be tempted to insist that God, our faith in God, fills the gap that is left in our hearts and lives. But we know this is only partially true. God is always with us even during those dark nights of the soul. But God does not completely fill the void. God allows some emptiness to exist, I think, so that we do not forget the one who is now absent, even as painful as that sometimes truly is.

Absence, if nothing else, allows us to be thankful for what was, to remember the other, to remember the past, to remember what was important and meaningful and to do so with gratitude even as painful as that will be at times to do. The truth is that absence is painful because who or what is gone was and still remains a very important part of who we are. If there is no pain, not even a twinge, then it means that we know we have moved on with our lives. Thankfulness for the one who is now absent, for that which is now absent, is not so much a cross we must bear as it is a reason to give thanks for the gift that was once given and still is part of us.