The Emptied Life

She sits in her living room as she talks to me, looking at pictures of her loved son, now dead. Trying to bridge two worlds that now seem worlds apart as loss has ripped everything apart including her own heart. She tells me that, every time we chat, memories come flooding back and she remembers. Somehow, even though miles separate us, we both feel held in this moment, recalling times when the one we both loved was still with us and mourning the fact that life is different now and his absence is felt daily. Togetherness always comforts. Always lessens the sting. 

Her voice quivers slightly as she tells me yet another story of the one she calls her "hero." That brave soul who risked so much because he cared so much. She speaks of the time she visited him while he worked at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Of how she wanted to know what a day in his life there was like and how that one day changed her. She shares her amazement at the long hours he put in, the numerous meetings and appointments with patients, their families, and doctors, doing behind-the-scenes work that not many see. Answering phone calls, escorting visiting dignitaries, and doing public relations - all for the sake of wounded ones who couldn't advocate or care for themselves. I can tell her eyes are filling with tears as she describes how she followed him to a wing of the hospital and watched as her son sat at the bedside of a few of his patients, holding their hand or feeding them dinner. One particular injured Marine had turned to her son and said, "This is the best meal I've had all day."  He was no medic. He was no doctor. But his wounded heart held their wounded hearts. Poured love into the broken places. And she was stunned.

My own eyes fill with tears as she continues to relate how she had asked him later on why he does this. He had stopped, turned to her, and simply said, "They're my brothers, mom." It all runs liquid for me now. 

As I hang up the phone sometime later, I'm struck by the thought that this Marine - her son and my friend - just might still be showing me in his death what it means to choose brave. That the emptied life is the fullest life. Is the richest life. 

In the days following this conversation, I think of all the times I watched him choose to face the pain he carried so deeply. He to whom loss had become normal continued to love when he had every reason to shut down, to turn away, to grow distant. He knew that his soul had the capacity to be enlarged by his losses...to give him the power to love more sincerely. And thus he continued to make more room in his heart for others. To believe that loss didn't have to have the final word. That he could become more than his losses. 

Can I become more than this loss also? 

Author Henri Nouwen writes so eloquently, 

"The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant. Every time you experience the pain of rejection, absence, or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide not to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer and more able to give life to new seeds. The more you have loved and allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper." 

His was a plowed under heart. And so was mine. So often, I heard him say how he was determined to keep getting back up when life knocked him down and God knows he'd had his share of that. I listened as he'd told me on many occasions how he still believed in life, in love, in goodness, in hope. That he had chosen forgiveness and grace over bitterness. Courage and perseverance over fear. And I had longed to view my own story the same way. To choose the brave way for myself. And he had shown me the way. Had proved that a busted up heart is still a feeling heart nonetheless. That as long as one has life in them, there is no greater way to use it than to do so in giving that one life of theirs away. 

Now, years later, the voice that had told me these things is silent. The phone calls long stopped. Grief, emptiness, and sorrow have taken hold and there is a painful absence that never will be filled. And I'm faced with a choice of my own. How to carry this sadness and still choose love. How to live fully and hope deeply even though the heart is trying to find its beat once again. And I'm led back to the concept of an emptied life. Of becoming a broken gift. 

My mind wanders back to the image of him there in the hospital. Broken heart choosing to let its own pain pour love over the wounds of others. Soul that had known loss determining to let that loss make it better. Make it love deeper. Make it grow fuller. He did not leave much in the way of possessions. He will never know the joy of wedded bliss he dreamed of. And he will never hear the patter of baby feet that he so longed for. But what he did leave was his unconditional, committed love in the hearts of all who knew him. And I feel that love still beating in my own, telling me to search for silver linings and to go love well. To keep choosing the brave way. 

"As you love deeply," Nouwen says once again, "the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of fruit it will bear." 

I look over at my own picture of him and see that smile still smiling back at me. And I whisper as I touch it that I choose not to let this loss have the final say. That I have breaths left in me that he no longer has, which means that I have life left to be emptied of. Love left to give away. And as long as I let that love go on, his love still touches the world through me.