My dearest A.C.,
Your Christmas note has touched me so privately and personally that I felt nothing short of a public response was in order. You and Your Lovely Ruth, now into your 90’s and she her 80’s, are an unwavering answer that Love Lives Still.
I ardently hope that Gary’s widow and daughter will be given the gift of comfort that grief can usher in. “Gary of the garden’s” passing reminded me of the gifts that are given to broken little girls to plant new things that will grow when they go. It spoke to me of an ever present advocate that enters in to the abusive apartments and sows seeds of beauty that decades later still blossom.
When we met in 1982 in Truro, NS, I was a little girl in an apartment filled with abuse that you knew nothing of. I recall you as a tall, deeply kind man and Ruth as a beautiful, tender woman who held my hand in the church that you gathered us children to. Now many decades later her love, your love, and your unwavering commitment to the source of love — lives still.
You write of agape love and as I sit to respond to you tears silently slip — giving speech to the unspeakable. It was that selfsame hunger for agape love (to actively seek the other’s highest good) that led to our atrocity and very nearly our annihilation. But you know all of this after ninety years of living.
As advent progresses, I am reminded still that He is one who does not remove the suffering — rather one who shares it. Thank you both for sharing, for being steadfast and true. Thank you endlessly for thinking me dear.
Peace to you and all that is yours as we wait expectantly.
Love,
LA