How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 –1861
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
For 53 years the couple would awaken and read or recite or hear a friend saying these immortal words. It was a January ritual begun on the first wedding anniversary.
On January 11, 2023, in love and remembrance only one mouthed the words in the cold morning. It was comforting.
Today, September 25th is a day that should have no special import but from now on may be a day for mourning, or not. On waking, the first thought, the first need was to hear this poem. The accompanying memory was of a soft slow issuance of breath, an afterthought it seemed. That breath came after a long pause and seemed to linger as it floated outward and upward and returned on the gossamer wings of a butterfly to settle with a soft caress. My Bert smiled. It was the final, soundless aspiration that filled the room.
But today is a day to put aside maudling sentimentality and contemplate present reality. Today marks the first year of living a strange unfamiliar singleness.
It was a poignant year not of mourning but of doing. Too busy advocating, informing, educating, sharing, caring, remembering, living. There were a few tears outweighed by a plethora of remembered joys. Tears wiped away within the ever surrounding arms of family and friends.
Today I meander through our song, gaze at albums, twinned biographies, and I laugh at our shared moments of joy or sigh at our shared moments of grief and wonder at the miraculous journey of two lives entwined.
And today I share our love poem with friends, families, all who love and mourn and remember their loved ones who are gone but have not left.
The Meander: Love endures. There is an everlasting delicacy in loving someone after they are gone. There is blessing in memory.