BETRAYAL . CHAPTER 8 . PARADISO

CHAPTER EIGHT

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Paradiso

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“Like living flame their faces seemed to glow.

Their wings were gold. And all their bodies shone

More dazzling white than any earthly show.” ~Dante Alighieri - Paradiso

I lost my love and suffered a broken heart, but I am not broken.

This is the last of the Betrayal series.

I wondered how I would write about Paradise.

Dante’s Paradise was in heaven.

The one I seek is here on earth–where I fall and fly and try to stay awake.

Michaelangelo never finished his slaves.

When I saw them climbing out of the giant blocks of stone in Florence, it was as if the stone just needed to fall away and they would be released. But they are still there as they always have been – almost, but not quite–free.

Years ago I asked a friend of mine who had lived with the loss of a beloved son,

“How do you live with grief?”

Her answer:

“At first, grief is a raging river that carries you away,

but now it is like a pair of shoes that I put on each morning.

Grief has become a part of me.”

I feel this way about the loss of my love.

I still carry sorrow–like a backpack of stones on my back.

But now, years later, it is not weighing me down– it has become a part of me.

I am no longer a victim.

I see that I am only a woman who is living her life in all its fury and exhilaration.

I have found my freedom–my own paradise; and it is freedom to choose.

I can choose how I feel and how I walk into my future. I can choose to live each day. I can leave the cocoon.

I have learned.

I have beaten my heart and my head against the stone, but slowly and sometimes quickly, I have found the answers that I sought. There are no scales weighing right and wrong, and no reward for suffering. I am no better a person than my husband, and the past is over.

I read about a marriage once, and how it can be like two people walking on the parallel rails of a train track; what started out as one becomes separated. I could see him, but his eyes were on the track ahead of him. Neither one of us knew how to reach across; and then we just forgot.

I used to feel that I didn’t have the right to ask anyone to stop and reach for my hand. But now I have learned that I will fight for love. I will call out “I love you” in a voice like a bell, and I will reach my hand and my arms out as far as I can and we’ll meet in the middle.

And I will vanquish that voice that insists that I am unlovable.

I believe that everything that happens, will happen and is possible is inside of us.

We can make choices and change the way we see things. It’s all up to each of us.

In my marriage I had choices, and I made the ones I had always made–the ones that showed me I was not good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, young enough, exciting enough, brave enough, creative enough or special enough to be loved.

I had a righteous martyr living inside me. Then the universe clobbered me.

Well, I just want to say to the universe– “I get it! … and don’t ever do that to me again.”

And now?

Am I happy?

Am I walking down that street in Italy with all the love and faith I can carry?

Maybe I don’t need to be in Italy just yet.

I believe it’s more than enough to be here, looking for butterfly wings of wonder and finally learning how to love.

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END

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By Kate Larsen . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2012 . Volume 2 . Issue 4

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