With wet lugubrious eyes, Christian River, sat. His wife, Lilly, was now dead and every bone in his sixty-eight year old body ached with grief. His lips quivered irrepressibly as his soft brown eyes, lifted upward, stared into the azure depths of a mostly cloudless sky. As he rung his moistened handkerchief with his age spotted hands a warm breeze kissed his cheekbones and dried the moisture around them. The metallic chirp of a puffed cardinal with its brilliantly red plumage bounced, periodically, from tree branch to tree branch above him. The bird’s melody fused with children playing in a nearby park with the sound of traffic humming along somewhere in the distance, both unseen. He was alone. Not just now but forever. Lilly had been sick for the last seven years. At the onset of her illness he had made the emphatic decision to retire early as the CEO of a major marketing firm in Los Angeles to take care of her. Up to that point Christian was a tireless man who threw every ounce of his being into the company’s success. Fruitless efforts, in hindsight. However, the last seven years of Lilly's life had been the most meaningful and purpose driven of his lifetime.

His eyes watered again as he remembered the quiet comfortable moments of combing her silvering hair and the wiping of her frustrated weakened eyes, that cried many nights, because she was unable to love him, tangibly, the way she used to. He didn’t care. He loved her. He was never burdened by the frequent hospital visits, the on time administration of her medications, the warm baths he gave her or the occasional bedpan exchange. “You are my rock.” She would whisper in her frailty. Oh, but she was his. Never in his lifetime had he witnessed such strength, determination and fortitude of will exhibited by another human being, not even as a marine in his youth. She was always full of life, always laughing, always loving. He was lost in the essence of her memory now as another tepid gentle breath of air caressed his tear streaked face which somehow brought him back to this present place of unrelenting anguish. He wiped his now drying eyes unconsciously with his handkerchief still staring intently into the deepest nadirs of the universe…as if looking for answers.

In his stillness, in the quiet of his mind he silently mouthed a question. “Where are you?” Silence. His hands were trembling. “If you are really out there…you’ll answer me.” Aside from the occasional breeze and the melody of the cardinal against the backdrop of the noises of ongoing life he could hear nothing…feel nothing. “I’m alone damn you. Talk to me! Reveal yourself!” He didn’t verbally say it, he thought it with great intention. There was further stillness followed by more quiet.

And then something happened. A voice. Although curiously enough, it was (in fact) his own voice only more serene, more peaceful, more soothing. “Why are you looking for me up there Christian?” He looked away as his skin tagged weathered eyelids softly blinked. “I’m right here with you, in you and around you.” In the calm of his quietness Christian closed his eyes. He didn’t care if he was, seemingly, talking to himself. He wanted answers. “Why did she have to die?” He waited for a riposte. “She didn’t.” The calming voice replied. “How can you say that? She’s gone. Her grave is right there.” With eyes still shut he pointed to the tombstone. “Oh, Christian how my heart aches for you. She is not there, beloved. She is with you, in you and around you, just as I AM.” ‘This is ridiculous. I’m just talking to myself.’ he reasoned. He stayed quiet and still; the voice (his voice) said nothing else.

Moments past. "Fine.” He relented with apprehension and doubt. “Where are you? Please, talk to me.” A few seconds past. “I’m here Christian, I’m always here.” “Then why can’t I see you?” He asked. “Because you are not looking.” His own soft tranquil pleasing voice answered. “All you see, right now is your grief. Yet, I have kissed your tears away twice in the past ten minutes all the while singing to you the sweetest of songs. You’ve not felt nor heard either.” A zephyr of gentle wind, once again, touched his face. The cardinal caroled melodically. “You know? You are not the first or the last to request this of me. Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Vishnu, Confucius, Socrates, Jesus, Muhammad and so many others, all in different ways, have deeply yearned this request of me. However, I have always answered their request by asking the same of them. It’s through their own revelations and conversations with me that they grew in their understanding. It's only then that they were able to consciously and supernaturally share our conversations and the illuminating enlightenment of their inner being with others.”

“Really? They revealed their theology, their religion and their rituals? Is this the path we’re talking about here? If it is, then I’m not interested.” He grumbled internally. “I’m an old man...I’ve heard and seen it all.” “No you haven't Christian. What they shared was their definitive Truth in their seeking and finding of me. But so many have made it what they have interpreted it to be. Many have found comfort in the religious theological traditions of others which have, sadly, usurped their own personal inner desire for spiritual Truth. And so by vigorously pursuing the spiritual rituals and philosophies of others rather than seeking a relational experience with me they have missed who I AM entirely and have created divisions among themselves but that is not what I want from you or from anyone, for that matter. So Christian, reveal yourself to me. I'm here. I've always been right here.”

This time Christian River trekked deeper into his consciousness and relented to the voice. “I, I don’t understand.” He replied. “Are you not my Creator? Do you not know me?” “Yes, I AM. Yes, I do.” The answer seemingly overlapped his question almost before he thought it. “You see beloved. I can withstand and absorb the essence of you and all your revelations as they come. However, you cannot of me. For that reason, I have and always will reveal to you only that which you truly seek to understand…and nothing more. In all the grandeur that makes up the very essence of you lies millions of revelations of me that are known to you…but not all at once. You have experienced me in small quantities because that is all you can handle.” In that moment a flood of memories infiltrated his mind. The innocence of his childhood, the love of his parents, the brotherhood and heartbreak of war, the pure love and passion of a youthful Lilly, The tender grip of his firstborn’s fingers wrapped around his, the tireless abyss of missed opportunities that were sacrificed because of the job, the beautiful timeless moments he spent caring for the love of his life, the love of his children and grandchildren surrounding the both of them. The sunrises, the rain, the glow of the moon, the laughter, the music…. “OK…Ok. Please stop. It is…it is too much.” He began to sob.

“Christian, this is only a spec of my being, it is incomprehensible to you but if you truly wish to see me, to really experience me, you must first seek yourself with complete awareness, consciousness and gratitude. Begin the journey, seek me within you and then reveal your truest self. Rid yourself of pride, fear, anger, lusts, grief, hatred, selfishness, envy and vanity. When you do you will begin to find the purity and energy of me, the ever flowing magnificence and illustrious splendor of who and what I AM. I AM LOVE. All wisdom, all power, all glory and righteousness flows through the spotlessness of my love…the essence of ME. And as you stumble and wrestle along this new path you will eventually find what was always in front of you and when you do, you will never walk the same way again.”

The voice fell silent for what seemed an hour as Christian felt a chill of wind within him that made him feel something very different than cold dark grief. Something else was now making him tremble. Through this silent conversation he realized his emptiness was fading and that the loneliness that filled his gut had somehow subsided. This terrified him. As if these new undeniable feelings somehow dishonored Lilly in some twisted obscure way. As he sat for many more minutes in the quiet of her memory he knew that would never be the case. In his solitude there was a semblance of peace stirring inside of him. It was getting dark and the cardinal had long flown away. He opened his aged eyes, put his hands on his thighs and took a deep long breath and exhaled. “What do I do now?” He breathed. “Search yourself, find me, live and abide in me Christian. I'm with you.”

With that final message ringing in his hears he stood up and took one last look at the granite tombstone. As he remembered Lilly and the life she gave him, he felt the very essence of her love surround and then envelop him. He touched his quivering lips with his fingertips. With a gentle kiss he offered them to the rounded mound of earth in front of him with a tender and solemn wave of goodbye. He turned his back on her grave sight and slowly walked the winding path home carrying the quintessence of her and her love with him leaving behind the moistened handkerchief and his sentiments of feeling abandoned. He knew now, at his core, that he never was nor will he ever be...alone.

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