Hidden note

"Statue at Sunset," Timm O'Cobhthaigh

I received the following e-mail from Christie this morning.

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David -- It's not unusual for me to find notes from Timm through out my place. However, last night's note has affected me deeply. Here's my thoughts in regards to the emotional madness ...

Timm,

Your name echoes on my lips tonight, like a skip on a music track, it doesn't stop. I want to reset the buttons or play a new song, anything to reset the images of happier times. But I can't, grief is relentless in its efforts to keep a person disoriented towards their feelings of love. I harbor pleasurable memories in my heart of us, but I struggle to recall them because grief is standing in the way.

Tonight is different, because my heart found respite in a note you left for me to find. Tucked in the folds of a blanket, you wrote on a folded piece of paper:

When my name is on your lips
And your hand caresses my cheek
Your eyes shoot their arrows deep into my heart
There is a song that you sing,
That I alone seem to hear
It woos my heart with your feminine soul
And drives all others from my mind
Creature comforts pale in their ability to soothe
Instead only point to the potency of your love.

It was dated 2/8/03, 6 months after our first date. Why Timm never shared this poem with me till now, I'll never know. But it came on a night when only his words could reach my distant heart -- distant and lost, because of grief's ability to distort life as I used to know it.

After hours of reading it over and over again, paralyzed by emotions, I folded the note and tucked it back in the folds of the blanket, just as he did, leaving it to be rediscovered another day.

Thank you for the beautiful poem, Timm. To share it after all these years is a testament to trust and loyalty that took so long to develop between us. Thank you for the well-invested time of love.

All my heart,

Christie