Early in our friendship, Steve would say to me 'You know, Melanie, this is a ten year conversation.' He did not say this one time, but maybe 100 times, or 500 times. It was the way we ended many conversations about many things. For all I know, this was a phrase he might have used with many of his friends, when talking about ideas that really mattered to him.
Ironically, this ended up being how long our face to face conversation lasted - in time and in space.
But I am afraid that I am still talking to him, and listening for him, in every moment. in every place, in every conversation, in every silence. For me, the conversation will inevitably be much longer.
At some point in our last months together, Steve forwarded me a word document that he titled, 'Collection.' Here is one of the poems I found there:
One Year I Gave You Up For Lent
I have never fasted because I was a holy man,
But only because I have known the strength of my desire,
The cauldron of passion kept under a heavy, iron lid.
And small fasts were but a way to try and say,
“Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Ghost….”.
One year I gave you up for Lent.
Which year?
I will not say.
I was becoming attached to the music of your voice.
Perhaps forty long days of silence and my heart would stop keeping time with the song. Had anyone noticed that I was falling under a spell?
Yet, how funny to think that my paltry determinations had any chance against love.
When my heart found its match, my efforts were no match.
And while for a time I did not pick up the phone, my insides were melting away,
Melting into you.
Many Lenten deprivations have come to me since, and stripped me bare.
So much more than any disrobing I could accomplish by myself.
All the while Love has bade me welcome,
And so have you.
Christ my provider, you the gift.
That which was born in Lenten barrenness has become an Easter garden. (Alleluia!)