Gifts to a Good Man?

There was once a good man whose wife brought him great comfort and companionship. They walked hand in hand through the world, facing all of life’s challenges and joys, together. And because they were together, all of their bad times seemed only half as bad, and all of their good times seemed twice as good.

One day, the man saw an envelope with his name on it, sitting on his wife’s desk. Just above his name, she had drawn a small bird flying up toward the sun.

“Oh! Is this for me?” the man asked, reaching for the envelope. But his wife quickly held it out of his reach.

“Yes, my darling,” she said, “but not for now.” She smiled playfully and slid the envelope into her desk drawer.

“But I would like to have it now,” he protested, putting his arm around her shoulder and giving her a little squeeze. “No,” she answered. “I’m waiting for just the right time.”

And so he waited, expecting the envelope at each birthday and anniversary, but it never came. After a few years, he forgot about it.

Many years passed, and the love between the man and his wife deepened. And then, as everything must in this temporary world, things changed. The man’s wife fell ill, and her soul left this world for a realm no one can see.

The man grieved, for there was no one beside him now to warm his heart, to talk to or share with. He felt his world without his companion to be a frozen winter. He wandered lost through the barren landscape of his days, wondering if his wife still existed in some form, in some place, and where it was.

And then one day he opened his mailbox to find an envelope from a close family friend. He opened it and found a note that read, “Just before she passed, your wife asked me to send this to you six months after her death.”

Stunned, the old man sank down on the weathered garden bench that he and his wife had placed by the rosebed so many years ago. Then he looked inside the envelope and pulled out a smaller one inside it. His name was written on the front, below a drawing of a small bird flying up toward the sun. The old man ran his finger over the drawing for a moment, remembering. Then he took out the pages and read his wife’s handwritten message that now seemed to come from another realm:

To my beloved husband,
If you are reading this, I am no longer sitting by your side in the garden of our life. This was all part of a plan and a promise I made to you, before we even came to the world. I was to leave first, for a great purpose. Love taught us how to open our hearts, and we gave many gifts to each other. But now I give my final and greatest gifts to you.

I give you the gift of loss and loneliness. Where I once stood beside you now seems a cold, unkind, and empty place. I have freed you now to finally and fully feel the great sorrow of separation from your true Source. Don’t run from this pain! Let it be your lantern in the dark, leading you to the One who can show you the way, the One who can teach you how to walk through the world, hand in hand with the true Beloved, who is eternal warmth, kindness, and comfort.

I give you the gift of solitude and silence. We never tired of being together and talking about every little thing. I know you sometimes feel swallowed up by the silence that surrounds you now. But this silence is a great gift. Don’t try to drown it in a sea of noise and activity. Sit in solitude and listen, for silence holds within itself a secret: the sacred sound of all life, love, and light. Forget the sound of my voice now. Seek the One who can show you how to hear the holy Sound within yourself. Learn how to listen with the soul’s ear and see with the soul’s eye, and you will soon know that you are never alone. You will know that wherever you are, you are in the company of the One Being. You will come to know that you, yourself, are a precious particle of this One.

I give you the gift of my absence. Now you wander the empty rooms of a house that once was our home and wonder what has happened. Where has she gone? What is her life like there? And that is my greatest gift to you, my love. For at last, instead of tying you down to the old world, your thoughts of me are leading you to wander into a new and finer realm. Whenever you think of me, you are reminded to rise up, while you are still alive, to a region far brighter and happier than the one in which we walked together. Seek the One who can set your soul into the stream of spirit within you. It will carry you out of your lonely house, on and on through undreamed-of realms and return you, at last, to your real home, where you will revel in true rest, real oneness, and perfect peace.

Forgive me, my love. For so long I filled the sacred place beside you. I kept you from the quiet. I stole your silence and solitude. I robbed you of your loneliness and longing for God. But that was how it was meant to be for a time. We learned how to love through each other. Now I ask for only one gift from you. Find the One who can show you the way to a far greater love than mine. Learn how to pour your love for me into the true Beloved, within. Begin to live in the blessed company of the One Being that is within you and all around you, in every atom of all that is. Do it now, while there is still time.

Sending you luminous waves of loving light from the ocean of the One…