Knowing Doesn't Matter

It didn’t happen the way we wanted it to happen.

We didn’t want it to happen at all.

But even though we didn’t want it to-- we knew it eventually would.

We were intelligent people. Artistic. Witty. Gifted. We had the keys to intellectual knowledge at our fingertips and we used them. We read the papers, the articles, the textbooks, the websites. We educated ourselves in the way that we were taught to- we gathered information. We did our research. We asked all the right questions even as- deep inside- we knew the answers had the power to defeat us.

We knew.

But the knowing doesn’t matter when it tangles up with love. No level of scholarly education can intellectualize emotion or focus on statistics when our heart’s desire is finally, finally, Oh, thank you, God, finally! finally within our reach.

A few years is better than none, we tell ourselves;

…the sun came out and we were flying down the freeway with the top down…”Aah, I shrieked, “my hair!” “Your hair?” he yelled, over the roar of the wind, “Do you have any idea what this cut cost?”…

they will be good years.

“…Today I went shopping. With my partner’s ex-girlfriend. We bought a hat. Now, we’re slaving away cooking dinner together while he destroys the centerpiece and uses the flowers to decorate the hat so she can wear it to our wedding…”

We will laugh together,

“…and I wonder where Jerry Springer gets his guests?…”

we will love together,

“…‘now abides Faith, Hope, and Love. These three. But the greatest of these is Love.’ …”

we will build the kind of joy together that will live beyond the pain.

* * *

But nobody told us- not one article, textbook, or website- bothered to mention how much pain there would be to live beyond.

My sweet, funny, gentle friend David died of AIDS-related complications last week.

It didn’t happen the way we wanted it to happen…

We didn’t want it to happen at all…

But the knowing doesn’t matter when it tangles up with love.

I will be traveling to Minnesota for a memorial service in a few weeks. In the meantime, if you would, I ask that you please let me know that you were here. In lieu of any comments, please take the moment it would have taken you to write, and instead send out a prayer of whichever sort suits you best. A thought, a song, a meditation; simply send a moment of acknowledgement of David’s too-brief life.

Send it out to the farthest corners of the universe,

in to the minds of research scientists,

and send it extra soft-cushioned to my poor, darling, grieving Best Friend.