Seventy Years and Counting...

It was the best sort invitation from a dear friend in Pennsylvania, asking me-and other friends- to send cards to her parents in April in celebration of their 70th wedding anniversary. Seventy years! It absolutely takes my breath away, especially since i will never even know the joy of celebrating 25 years with the same man. Seventy years! It nearly stops my heart to contemplate it...

Two marriages have been part of my life...the first ending after a mere 12 years with the untimely death of my young husband at age thirty-seven; the second ending after 14 years with a divorce when that husband decided i was no longer the person to whom he wanted to be married. That marriage ended in 1994, and in the intervening years- seventeen years, to be exact- i have not been in a relationship with a man. Not complaining, you understand- just acknowledging. 

Sometimes the lack of a partner has been hard...and i have experienced a longing for which words seem inadequate- though as a poet and wordsmith, i have tried. Occasionally, the lack of physical contact has brought out a longing in me which some might find unseemly in a woman nearing seventy years of her own. But other times, i have found that the single life can have deep meaning, especially when i keep myself open to the many gifts life still holds for me...especially when i see the many couples struggling to hold it together over the long haul...especially when half of all marriages end in divorce... 

But when i think of Charlie and Margaret and their seventy years, i admit to a deep and abiding envy, even as i send them my deep and abiding love. 

(written a couple of years ago)

honest reflection...

I have longed- for years- for a

man in my life...one willing to see

and love all of me...who would

accept and cherish the broken

person I really am...

but at sixty-seven, I have

pretty much convinced myself-

and accepted- that this will

never, ever happen.

And so, a piece of my heart

is broken...lying in wait for

love's true breath to bring it

back to life...to restore it to

full health...

Yet I cannot lie in deep

mourning for long. Life is

too lovely...the birds sing, the

sun rises, the violets and azaleas

bloom; a stranger at the deli

counter speaks with delight about

finding blouses she loves at

half-price, and the hairnet-topped

woman behind the counter

waits on me with a smiling

countenance, offering her kind

benediction- "Have a blessed day."

I who have so much-

I who want for nothing-

I who have never been truly

   hungry or without a place

   to lay my head-

I who can walk and talk and think-

   how can I complain of lack?

Yet- if I am to be completely

honest- I carry a bereftness

deep within...a sense of wanting

something more...

   which is perhaps the reason

    I seek God...                    

(written earlier this year)

ecstatic longing

my body aches for love's

sweet touch, not felt

for seventeen long years

i know- a woman my age is

not supposed to yearn for

the sweep of passion's wave,

much less confess the

longings of my body

and my aching heart

the height and depth and breadth

and soaring, breath-catching

emotion reserved for the young-

or at least younger

but, i confess,

my body aches for just

one more moment of

sweeping ecstasy