who has just been removed from the cross. In the first, the joy and love of mother and son are palpable. Yet, in some versions, the virgin’s eyes are sad with the knowledge of the passion to come. In the second, Mary again holds the body of her beloved, now sacrificed and lifeless, but still in her arms. In the Lamenting Virigin, we encounter gesture again, the love and sad tenderness is there, but, in the place of the beloved Son there is emptiness. “Alone she saw to birth as now she has seen to the burial. She took and held the precious child and prepared the undefiled body for the grave.” But the arms are not just empty; the arms are perceptibly in motion, drawing the absent One closer to her breast.
I know no more powerful, no more achingly truthful depiction of the persisting experience of grief than this. All the gestures of love I had learned over the years are hollow after Linda’s death. Meant to surround her, to make my heart known to her, my arms now ache from the emptiness. The weight of such emptiness has no measure.
And yet, there is more to the message of this image. For it is the infant so tenderly held that gives the gesture its meaning. The virgin’s inclination, bearing, and being are shaped by the love in that gesture. Her love, even in her time of absence, is formed around her beloved, a love returned with equal tenderness and depth by the infant Christ. Likewise, although the absence of the infant, and of the dying Lord, can never be denied, the very shape of the virgin’s love makes the beloved almost visible.
Lady of Vladimir
Epitaphios Threnos
Day II
Day II: Dawn [Lauds]
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
—Rilke
Diary Entry: August 5, 2008—7:45 a.m.—Seattle
It is a new morning. I thank God for mornings. Night brings dark thoughts and weariness of soul. The new day brings with it a prospect of joy in life, perhaps for new possibilities, for a new way to walk these days with my darling. I truly hope so, because walking without her is deepest pain.
Linda and I kept this familiar prayer at our bedside:
This is another day, O Lord.
I know not what it will bring forth,
But make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be.
If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely.
If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly.
If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently.
And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly.
Make these words more than words . . .
—Book of Common Prayer
Day II: Daytime
Ungiven gifts pile about me.
Unsung songs remain
trapped in my throat.
Unsaid words lie rotting
in my mouth,
and I sit staring down
a lifetime of unlived days,
for love didn’t leave
when death arrived.
God, what will I do
with the unfinished love?
It wells up within me
with nowhere to go,
and I am bursting
with the pain of it.
—Ann Weems
Unfinished love. Love is never finished, of course, but our love was still deepening, still maturing. As her illness progressed, I sensed a greater tenderness in Linda’s touch and glance. The memory of them now is precious; painful but sweet. During her illness I learned difficult lessons about caring, about how to help her cope with her struggles. I have not finished the course, but the unfinished work of love now has a different assignment. The work is harder, because Linda can no longer gently correct my course. I won’t let this stop me, though.
I have done some things to keep alive what she most cared about. I have been working with a national organization to promote lung cancer research to which she dedicated her life. I am also seeking ways to honor her courage and compassion, her insight into the needs and suffering of others, her steadfast refusal to tolerate behavior that denies respect for the vulnerable, her always evident grace and patience.
While she now rests from her caring labors, her deeds follow after her (Rev. 14:13). Our love, unfinished but firm, will continue to live and grow.
Day II: Mid-Morning [Terce]
Diary entry: August 3, 2008—9:30 a.m.—On Amtrak train in mid-North Dakota
Yesterday’s travel went smoothly. After leaving my bags at Union Station, I walked around downtown Chicago, our hometown. It was a beautiful, sunny, cool day. Chicago was splendid, but Linda’s absence was painfully present to me. I hope that someday the memories of our precious times together here will be welcome and lovely, but now they just bring pain—pain at her loss, pain at my loss of her and of the joy of sharing these good times.
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