Monday Morning Musing: Light and Shadows

There’s so much that I learned from Bruce over the almost two decades of our relationship.  It was fortuitous that, while we held the same core values, we were wired so differently.  For those of you who know about personality assessments, our Meyers Briggs outcomes were exactly opposite one another and I am an Enneagram 3 to his 9.  You get the idea. 

At home, in our quotidian life together, which wasn’t ordinary at all, I was the planner and the organizer and the list maker and Bruce….well, he was the one who just brought light and levity and spontaneity and spaciousness to our days.  AND THEN….when we traveled…..we switched bodies!  Bruce planned our every waking moment and I was the one who’d suggest a rest day or to ‘pop in’ to this place we just stumbled across.  In both our life at home and our traveling together, we found ways to learn from and honor each other’s ideas and needs and dreams.

It's our wedding anniversary today and I’m reveling in the memories of that very warm, beautiful day.  I’m remembering that the caterers brought the wrong size tablecloths and couldn’t fix the issue, so our friends went out and bought the right sized ones.  I’m remembering the beautiful music from friends who’d traveled from Ohio to sing us into our new life.  I’m remembering a sermon based on the WaterGate in Leviticus.  I’m remembering cupcakes and good food and the wife of one of Bruce’s friends who brought me food and water throughout the reception.  I’d never met her before, but I was so grateful for her.  I’m remembering that debut of the moniker we received gladly: “Brulie”. I’m remembering the number of people who were there that day and no longer walk this earth, most notably, of course, the groom.  And his momma, whose cell phone rang in the middle of the ceremony and who denied it vehemently afterward until she finally realized we were laughing about it.  And my friend Lynette.  I’m remembering our honeymoon flight on a sea plane to Victoria, BC.  A five-seater sea plane.  What an adventure. 

When I think of what I learned from Bruce over these years, though, I’m leaning today into how he taught me to see light and shadow.  As a photographer, these were crucial elements of a photograph – the interplay of how light hit objects and people and created shadows at the same time.  I regularly told him that I’d not noticed this in the before-Bruce days and that this was both a part of and emblematic of what he brought to me: the gift of seeing both light and shadow and understanding that one creates the other. 

The metaphor is obvious, isn’t it?  Without the light of the love we shared, there would have been no shadow surrounding his absence.  It’s because of the light of our love together, which was sometimes soft and diffuse and sometimes blazing and brilliant and sometimes it sparkled like fireflies and sometimes it roared like fire….but it’s because of that light that I am able to endure the shadows.  That was true when he was alive and we walked together through hard times and it is true now. 

One of the songs we often listened to together is May You Find a Light by The Brilliance. 

Lost and weary traveler, searching for the way to go

Stranger, heavy hearted, longing for someone to know.

May you find a light…May you find a light…May you find a light…To guide you home.

There are weary travelers searching everywhere you go

Strangers who are searching, lonely, deeply to be known.

May you find a light…May you find a light…May you find a light…To guide you home.

This is what I am remembering the most on this day: the light of his love for me and the light of the love we shared and the light of your love, dear friends, for us in this hard and unwelcome and shadowed season.   Like Bruce, may we find a light to guide us home.