Strong

Today is Valentine's Day. A day that meant more to Heidi than I think most who knew her would expect.

It is also this day that marks one month since her death. So it shall be at 5:28 PM.

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It is possible that some of you, reading what I have written, imagine a soul in a state of paralysis or constant gloom.

No need to worry. In fact, one blessing of this exercise is that I can more freely move on to necessary or unnecessary activity. I can isolate, package up, and save my more somber thoughts, and thus be delivered from the need to cycle through them constantly, lest they dissipate forever.

Those who see me know better. I am able, for better of for worse, to laugh and smile and do stuff.

Over the past five weeks, I have had at least three people tell me that they know I am "strong." That was the word they used. Now, make no mistake: it helped to hear it. In my life dealing with young people, I know the principle that affirmation tends to supply or multiply its object, as a young person takes ownership of what they have been affirmed in. And I would guess that it is a property of humans in general, and not just young people. Those who told me that I was strong—you gave me strength for the moment.

But the truth is, in later weeks, other moments have come when I wanted to call them all back and say, "No, I am not strong." I don't have strength for this. Losing Heidi is too big, too heavy for me. And this is not because I am afraid of the prospect of managing a household of five kids—including a one-year old—without my wife. Instead, I simply feel unable at times to go on as "Not-me."

For I have lost myself. I have lost more than half of what I am, most of what I looked forward to on earth, my best friend, my companion, my heart. "How am I supposed to do this?" Those are the words that I have bubbled out in my worst moments. How am I supposed to do this as a hollow man?

And what is "this"? I simply don't know. That's part of the lack of strength. How can one feel strong when doesn't know what the contest is?

Not strong enough to continue daily life? No, that's not it. We're doing that. And with the support and generosity of others, I do not feel powerless there.

Not strong enough to continue daily life with the same joy? Well, yes. That's part of it. One thing I told the kids is that we have to bond together as a family even more. I have tried to have evening recreation after dinner. And it has been going pretty much as I pictured it in my head. The kids have been laughing, and we have been holding each other close, figuratively and literally. But what surprised me is that it still feels sad in those moments. I don't think the kids feel it that way. I guess I expected pure, unmixed joy again at those times. But, no. They are always part sorrowful.

Not strong enough to continue believing? That's not the problem either. A good friend of mine wrote me this email:

I just heard about Heidi's death.  I am devastated for your sake.  If you want a friend to talk to, you can always call me.

If anyone can handle this with faith it's you.  Why God has chosen you to bear the double cross of losing a mother and a wife I do not know, but I do know that Our Lady will not stand idly by without interceding for you and your dear children.

As you know, we both lost a mother when we were young, and somehow we came out OK.  Our Lady will take care of your children too.

It was another affirmation of my strength. This person clearly regards my faith as strong. And I suppose he is right. This is my third major grief, and though this one is by far the worst, it was from my second grief that I learned that the path of not believing in God is not a realistic option for me. In that second grief, I was angry with God, and I almost wished I could have "struck back" by not believing in him, but it just couldn't be done.

My students know that I am not a fan of Pascal's Wager (or, I'll add, for the sake of his defenders, the popular version of it, though I'm not convinced there is a difference). I have two reasons for this, but the one that is relevant here is: the Wager makes it sound like it is up to us to believe or not believe in God's existence. I am too much of an intellectualist to think that this can be done. If one does not believe that God exists, then they simply can't up-and-choose to believe that he does, for the sake of some benefit. Our freedom of choice does not extend that far. It follows knowledge (ours or God's); it does not tell the intellect what to know.

And if that's true for one who does not believe in God, it's also true for one who believes that God exists. I was unable to NOT believe that God exists—no matter how angry I was at him. Why, now, would this experience change that? How would ceasing to believe help anything (to think along the lines of Pascal's Wager)? Should I exchange what some would call my "pie in the sky" for a gruel of stacked quarks? Does not the very fact that I—we—miss Heidi so sorely tell us something about reality? Here, Lewis and I have had a similar road. He says:

Reality, looked at steadily, is unbearable. And how or why did such a reality... produce things like us who can see it and, seeing it, recoil in loathing? Who (stranger still) want to see it and take pains to find it out, even when no need compels them and even though the sight of it makes an incurable ulcer in their hearts? People like H. herself, who would have truth at any price.

If H. ‘is not’, then she never was. I mistook a cloud of atoms for a person. There aren’t, and never were, any people. Death only reveals the vacuity that was always there. What we call the living are simply those who have not yet been unmasked. All equally bankrupt, but some not yet declared.

But this must be nonsense; vacuity revealed to whom? bankruptcy declared to whom? To other boxes of fireworks or clouds of atoms. I will never believe — more strictly I can’t believe — that one set of physical events could be, or make, a mistake about other sets. No, my real fear is not of materialism. If it were true, we — or what we mistake for ‘we’ — could get out, get from under the harrow.

I, too, am not tempted to materialism or atheism. In that sense, I guess my faith is strong. I am quite convinced of God's existence. And knowing that he exists, I know that human hopes cannot be fulfilled without supernatural agency. Nature can give us no direction on how to be happy after we die. Thus, we must expect revelation about this from God. And, by the gift of God, I believe Jesus is that revelation. I believe in God; I believe also in Jesus. That is not where my weakness is.

But, of course, we know that love is more important than faith. "You believe in one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe, and tremble" (James 2:19). (I took some liberties with the translation).

Am I strong enough to love God in all this?

Before Heidi met me, she had decided that she would not "settle." She would wait on God to give her a husband. And she had a list of conditions for the man that would be her husband. One of the items on that list was that "he must love Jesus more than me."

Once again, I am affirmed by the fact that she thought that was true of me. And I hope and pray that she is right. Do I know it is the case? That question, of course, involves one of the big Catholic shticks. It is part of our teaching that, apart from a special revelation, we cannot know if we have charity in ourselves; we cannot know if we are in the state of grace. "Man knows not whether he is worthy of love or hatred" (Eccles. 9:1). We must always "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12). There was a great episode in St. Joan of Arc's mistrial when the masters of the University of Paris tried to trip up this illiterate peasant on this very matter. They asked her, "Are you in the state of grace?" She answered perfectly: "If I am not, may God be pleased to put me there. If I am, may God be pleased to keep me there." (Mark Twain made a big deal about this interchange in his own favorite book).

These days have been a test. Do I love Jesus more? Or do I love Heidi more?

I have enough training to know that emotions are not the guide in these matters. It is perfectly natural in these days to feel the love of Heidi more—love that takes the form of pain in absence of the beloved.

But I began these reflections by admitting I am weak. Am I strong enough to love Jesus in spite of all this?

Love wants to be with the beloved. I have taught my students that the hope of Christianity is to see God face-to-face, the beatific vision. I even said that if this does not appeal to them, then that is what they must fix before they die. Seeing God face-to-face is knowing the essence of the First Cause: the thing that Aristotle said would bring perfect happiness, but was impossible unless the gods turned out to be generous. And Christianity reveals that He is generous: he does share His inner life with us as perfectly as a creature can receive it, in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5.

But now, for the first time in my conscious memory, I find it hard to want what I tell my students they should want.

I have been shaken. I have been tested. What I want now is Heidi, my wife. Not mental communication with Heidi, like Lewis seems to have experienced as a sufficient resolution at the end of his book. I don't want just spirit Heidi. I am even afraid of Jesus's words in Mt. 22:30: Even "In the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage." In spite of how people might talk to widowers, there is a very real sense, a more honest sense, in saying that I have lost my wife forever. Not even the Church sees Heidi as my wife. Theoretically, I can marry again and not break the laws of monogamy. Death has parted us. Not even God sees her as my wife anymore. Am I strong enough to want the consolations that Faith offers in the future when my heart just wants to go back to the past? I want my life with my wife, so very dearly.

If shock you, I beg your pardon. But this is hard to bear. I just want my Valentine back.

At least you can see that Lewis had it, too:

Suppose that the earthly lives she and I shared for a few years are in reality only the basis for, or prelude to, or earthly appearance of, two unimaginable, super-cosmic, eternal somethings... You tell me ‘she goes on’. But my heart and body are crying out, come back, come back... But I know this is impossible. I know that the thing I want is exactly the thing I can never get.... On any view whatever, to say ‘H. is dead’, is to say ‘All that is gone’. It is a part of the past. And the past is the past and that is what time means, and time itself is one more name for death, and Heaven itself is a state where ‘the former things have passed away’.

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand. 

I guess this is the test. And, on my own, I am not strong enough to pass it. And yet, if I ever want to be with Heidi again, I must.

When we were in the hospital, I once said to her doctor, "She loves Jesus more than me." Out of context, it might sound like lighthearted banter, but the context was actually quite serious. My brother Frederick told me later that he was taken aback (in a good way) by the directness with which I said it. I have far less doubt about Heidi's love being "set in order" (Song of Solomon, 2:4, LXX) than I do about mine.

This, of course, means that if I ever want to be with her again, I have to be like her. It's all gotta be true, and I gotta be good, with God's goodness.

But is even this already a bad start? Witness Lewis:

Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all.

Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learn to love you so much that I don’t care whether I meet her or not? Consider, Lord, how it looks to us. What would anyone think of me if I said to the boys, ‘No toffee now. But when you’ve grown up and don’t really want toffee you shall have as much of it as you choose?’

As T.S. Eliot put it, "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." To be with Heidi again, I must love God and become holy, but not for the sake of being with Heidi. I must want union with God more than I want things to return to the former earthly happiness that we all had as a family.

If it is true that God "will not let you be tempted beyond your strength" (I Cor. 10:13)... well, then it seems unfortunate to be judged strong enough to undergo this. It seems that the reward for trying to build virtue (virtus: strength) is great trials. The more we try to make good behavior easy by the promptness, facility, and delight of a good character trait, the more evil God will see us worthy to undergo. Strength only brings pain. No good deed goes unpunished.

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But I know what Heidi would say. A big theme in Heidi's words and writings was the transition from natural virtue to supernatural virtue and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit along the path of the three classic ways of the spiritual life (the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way). After the purgative way, in which one struggles against sin and tries to build up good character, they must be brought through the Dark Nights, where God builds virtue in them and acts in them directly. This can only happen when one is brought to complete inability—inability on their own. If this does not happen, there is no holiness. Being self-reliant, and teaching others to be so, is literally the devil's day-job.

And so, I have to be brought to where I am not strong. We all do. I will try. I will pray. I will ask. Do I know if I love God aright? No. But I know I want to. Do I know that I want to for the correct reasons now? No. But that only means that I should not have been so certain before either. We don't know what we really are until we are forced to make choices. Wanting to love God is, I hope and believe, an incipient love of God. Lord, help me. Heidi, pray for me. "If I am not there, may God be pleased to bring me there. If I am there, may God be pleased to keep me there."

In the end, I hope and pray that God is not displeased with my love for Heidi, with my desire to simply turn the clock back six weeks, and with the emotional weight of that desire making it seem to myself like I want nothing more. Emotions are one thing. Choices are another. I will do my best, with the grace of God, to not choose against him. Lewis, who struggled as I did, also gave me that answer:

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer’. It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand’...Probably half the questions we ask — half our great theological and metaphysical problems — are like that. And now that I come to think of it, there’s no practical problem before me at all. I know the two great commandments, and I’d better get on with them. Indeed, H’s death has ended the practical problem. While she was alive I could, in practice, have put her before God; that is, could have done what she wanted instead of what He wanted; if there’d been a conflict. What’s left is not a problem about anything I could do. It’s all about weights of feelings and motives and that sort of thing. It’s a problem I’m setting myself. I don’t believe God set it me at all.

The fruition of God. Re-union with the dead. These can’t figure in my thinking except as counters… The mystical union on the one hand. The resurrection of the body, on the other. I can’t reach the ghost of an image, a formula, or even a feeling, that combines them. But the reality, we are given to understand, does... Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.

 

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