"Who knows how long I've loved you..."

"Who knows how long I've loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely life time
If you want me to I will

For if I ever saw you
I didn't catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we are apart…"
- Lennon/McCartney

I have always felt this way about my children…and my husband.  It is as if I have always known them.  And when I say "always" I don't mean as far back as their birth…or mine…but to, and from, "infinity and beyond". 

"Meeting" each of the people I love has been more of an "oh, I remember you" than a "nice to meet you" (for the first time) moment.

There is always something vaguely familiar poking at the edges my heart, like a memory, when we are together.  It is almost as if I've seen them somewhere before, just as they turned a corner on a crowded street, but then the memory of where and when is gone.  The shade of green in my eldest daughter's eyes, or the way my sister's fingers feel slender and cool in my hand while we talk. A girlfriend's mannerisms when she's nervous, my mother's sharp intake of breath if she's startled. The sound of my younger daughter's voice singing from behind my seat in the car – something she will do only if she thinks I'm not listening..  And the way her sister's eyes cloud up when she is moved to tears by the thought of a homeless puppy, waiting for adoption, at the neighborhood Petsmart.  The color of the African veld at sunset. All these things feel as timeless, and familiar, as the strains of an ancient lullaby.

I have often written about my confidence in the eternality of life...in the face of a loved one's passing…but I don't think I have related it to how powerful those same insights have been in thinking about  my children's birth, meeting a new friend, or discovering love after decades of freindship.  

Carly Simon sings in "Life is Eternal":

"Life is eternal
And Love is immortal
And death [birth] is only a horizon
And the horizon
Is nothing save
The limit of our sight..."

I believe that the horizon we call "birth" is nothing but the limit of what we remember.  I am so certain that this "timeline," of measured moments between birth and death which we call "life (and then try to extend as long as possible)...is just one chapter, in a very long book. Or to stay with the "horizon" metaphor…just one more expanse of prairie between mountain ranges.  It is simply the stretch of landscape we can see, but not the end…or the beginning…of the journey. 

Memory, our own...or that of someone who claims to have "been there,"…seems to define the beginning of each chapter.  But what if those moments when we recognize something familiar…in someone we are meeting for the first time…is just a glimpse beyond the horizon behind us.

I know that when my husband laughs, I feel as if I have heard that sound longer than I have known my name…or his.  I know that his hand in the small of my back, as he gently steers me out of harms way, is as familiar as my own hand against my cheek in sleep.

It gives me great pause to think that none of us are really meeting for the first time, but perhaps are just reconnecting on this side of the last horizon.

"…And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
And you know I will
I will…"

[here is a link is to my favorite recording of
I will…" by Alison Krauss]

always...and again,
Kate