Source: Adina Disney
via stylemepretty.com via Pinterest.

An entire lifetime can be devastated in one fell swoop.

With me, it was hearing the words, “Your daughter has a malignant tumor in her thigh. We need to remove it right away.”

That was many years ago. On that day the earth inside of me stopped spinning while the outer one seemed to be “business as usual.” I orbit around a dark star, doing the best I can with it.

Love, for me, has been a crucifixion experience; little wonder that I became a spiritual student and writer. When my husband fell ill in 2000, I knew the drill. I would be his caregiver until he crossed over. Little did I know that our love would endure and grow into the thing that would shape me in my later years.

I struggle for normalcy; I do my very best to live up to what the world demands of widows.

They want us to be seen and not heard. So I have silver hair and keep my head down. But at home I am free to roam the universe of the heart. Angels populate these realms. Otherwise I couldn’t tolerate the hand I have been dealt.

My writing comes directly from Bob’s last wish for me; that I would find my passion before he died. I wrote about this in Life With A Hole In It. Although I have struggled with many things in my life, writing is not one of them. I am not a success, but apparently I am supposed to write anyway.

I don’t watch football. So on Super Bowl Sunday I ramble around the house, ending up at the keyboard wanting to touch random hearts here and there. Does your life ever feel so sad you can’t bear it? Sensitive souls often feel that way. Rational thinking doesn’t fill the bill. What will it take to carry on? I think I know what it is, but I keep forgetting.

Here is my theory, developed during this conscious lifetime of mine. I am love itself, so there is nothing I have to do about love but be it.

Ironically, we spend our days living out from a false sense of self given to us by society. It tells us to be normal, fit in, serve our fellow man and kwitchyerbellyakin’. Suck it up, cowboy or cowgirl, this here ain’t no time to whine.

But truth is truth. Children die; wars are fought and lost. Poverty and crime abound. Never mind a pediatric surgeon delivering the news of my child’s fatal cancer. I have tried to do as society demands. I live a solitary life devoted to God and my inner life. I write almost daily, seldom taking breaks from it.

And every now and then I sing. I sing when someone responds to one of my Facebook Notes. When they realize I have given them breathing room and have not cast them down but lifted them up.

For love loves itself, always and everywhere. Love lights up the absences in our cold and lonely hearts.  Shines the stars down just for us. Carries us aloft on wings of night. Sets us down in paradise when we enter dreamless sleep.

As Rumi said,

 “I would love to kiss you.

The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,

What a bargain, let’s buy it.”

 

In the bargain basement of my dining room, seated at my iMac, I sit and write these love notes for anyone who cares to stop and read. All are S.W.A.K (sealed with a kiss)….read at your own peril. You could be the next one in the Kissing Booth of God.

 

Vicki Woodyard is a spiritual writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, she graduated from The University of Memphis, magna cum laude, with a B.S. in English and Psychology. She is a meditator, a webmaster and has a lifelong interest in the spiritual path. She is also the author of Life with A Hole In It and most recently, A Guru in the Guest Room. You can find out more about Vicki at her website VickiWoodyard.com  or friend her on Facebook. 

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Asst Ed: Lori Lothian

Ed: Kate Bartolotta