Threshold
In the spring of
1970, the drama department was working on our production of The
Fantasticks. I was stage manager and lighting director. During the
early rehearsals, one of our two pianists asked if I could rig a light
so she could see her music, but the audience couldn't see her. That was
the very first time we spoke, the moment I became aware that Sue
McKnight existed in the world. One year after that, I asked her to marry
me. Two years after that, as soon as I turned 18, we were married. And
after 16 years and 10 months of marriage, on April 2, 1989, she died
suddenly. Pneumonia, which we didn't even know she had.
From the first day
Sue was part of my world to the day she left my world was within a month
of being exactly 19 years. April 2, 2008, was the 19th year she'd been
dead. Absent from me for as long as she had ever been in any way
present. To a greater or lesser extent, I spent all of those 19 years
mourning. Not for her… I have always known that she is with the Father,
and at Peace; I mourned for myself, and mourn still, because from that
day forward she did not walk with me or talk with me anymore. She was
the love of my life, my gift from God, and half my soul was torn from
me.
Contemplating the
19th year since her death, I came face to face with a feeling of
resentment that shocked me. No, I didn't have a resentment against Sue
for dying on me, or against myself (much). We’d dealt with annual
bronchitis attacks through 18 prior years. Always could tell it was
coming, we knew the symptoms, Sue knew exactly what it felt like in her
body, and we always successfully handled it the same way. So the 19th
year it's pneumonia, and suddenly she's dead? What the hell is that?
My resentment, I
realized, was with God. We had always done the opposite of how insanity
is defined... we did the same thing repeatedly, expecting the same
result. So my question became, why did God kill my wife? That created a
spiritual crisis, one with which I was struggling without success. Then,
one morning, as I got down for my morning meditation and prayer, I was
inspired to do something I hadn’t done since 1989... I made an
appointment, and went and spoke to my priest. With her help, I was able
to see and understand things that had always eluded me.
The first thing was
that I had turned the loving, caring God I’ve believed in my whole
life... especially my whole adult life... into a cruel, vengeful,
killing God. A God that I do not believe exists. I needed my priest’s
help to get there, but I discovered a new concept, and an insight that
led me to a wonderful piece of knowledge.
God doesn’t kill
people we love. That’s just not something a loving God does. But it is
the nature of things that there is illness in the world, and there is a
limit for each of us. It is certain to come too soon, but it must come.
In this thought, I found a new concept of the ending of her life. Sue’s
body carried her for as long as it could.
It is my long-held
belief that we are each sent into this world with some purpose we are
meant to fulfill. I asked my priest what thing of importance, what
purpose that I couldn’t see, did Sue get to fulfill in just 36 years and
five days? She gave me some framework and I filled it out.
Sue got to spend the
last 18 years of her life giving unconditional love, receiving
unconditional love, sharing unconditional love with me. In good times,
in bad times, when we were happy with each other, when one of us might
briefly be angry with the other, that unconditional love was always
there. I’ve come to learn that that is much more than most people ever
get to experience. She got the chance to give it, and she got to receive
it. That’s a lot for any lifetime.
Sue got to spend the
last fifteen-and-a-half years of her life raising a son with love,
affection, caring, and devotion. And she got to live those years showing
him every day, with me, what real love between a husband and a wife
could and should be. The lesson took. He told me last year, unprompted,
that all the time he was growing up he saw what we had, and wanted that
for himself someday. When I look at him and Kristina, I see the kind of
love Sue and I had for each other. And that lesson they will hand down
when, God willing, they have a child. This is the other part of Sue’s
legacy, and it is a wonderful thing.
I can find peace in
that.
So 2008 is a
threshold. I mourned her death for 19 years. Focused on it so much that
it overshadowed everything else around her in my mind. But the part of
Sue that is part of me isn’t in her death. It is in the life, and joy,
and love that joined us through all her days. So, now, with the end of
those 19 years and the reaching of this threshold year, I begin a new
endeavor. To remember and celebrate her life and her love. The loss will
always hurt; sometimes I’m bound to fall back into old, familiar ways.
But as much as I am able, and with God’s help, I’m going to make March
28th (her birthday) and June 3rd (our anniversary) the days that get my
attention and focus. I’m going to retrieve from my memories all the fun
and happiness. I’m going to celebrate her being part of my life, the
center of my life.
I’m going to
celebrate Sue.
