Tennyson and I

This week I read what is perhaps the most beautiful, most sorrowful, and most despairing poem that I think was ever written. It was In Memoriam A. H. H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He wrote the poem after the death of his best friend, Arthur. It took him sixteen years to write the entire work. It's amazing to think that any person would mourn so thoroughly for a friend for so long. It is clear that even to the last words of the poem, written so many years after Arthur's death, that Tennyson still felt the loss of his friend very deeply. He wrote how he would approach Arthur's old house, and would wait outside the door, just wishing that Arthur would open it and grasp his hand in a friendly handshake, just as he had in the past. He wrote:

“Dark house, by which once more I stand

Here in the long unlovely street,

Doors, where my heart was used to beat

So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp'd no more.”

It's enough to make any heart break. Perhaps we all know what it means to lose someone so close to us, whether it be in death, or in separation. Tennyson longed for the touch of a hand that he knew he would never more feel. In the same way, I long for the embrace of arms that once encircled me with warmth and love. I fear I will never again feel that way. Sometimes at night, I lay in bed and wonder. I wonder if he, wherever he may be at the moment, feels the same way I do. Our separation was not one either of us wished, but rather something that had to be done at the time. I pray it will not be forever, but I hope he feels the same way. So much insecurity fills my mind, yet so much love still fills my heart. Voices around me tell me, “It will get better, I promise,” “You are young, you can move on,” yet, none of them are reassuring at the moment. Someday in the future, I'm sure I will look back on this moment and smile, thinking of how everything worked out in the end. Things do work out in the end, don't they? This is what we've been taught all along. Cinderella marries the prince, Lassie always comes home, Lucy and Ricky make up, even Cory and Topanga get back together in the end of season 5. Yet, how can I, who is stuck in this slow-moving wheel of time, push the hands of the clock forward and get through this day to day misery? I open my eyes in the morning, and my heart cries out with pain, because it remembers that it is alone, and uncared for. I sit up, and get out of bed. I go through the day as if nothing is wrong, but sighs and small cries of pain reveal how I really feel inside. Does he still love me? Does he still want to win me back? All I can say is that I hope so. All I have is hope...and love. Well, it's a start at least, right?