Yesterday I sat by the water for the last time the morning I was preparing to pack up my stuff yet once again and move for another 5 weeks at a new location, meeting new people, and becoming familiar with another aspect of my ever changing career path and life. I sipped my iced coffee and read (for the second time) Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. For those of you who have not read this book, I highly recommend it. It is an incredible description of the author's life in Nazi death camps and his sheer will to live that got him through not only the camp, but the death of numerous members of his family and close friends. One of Kevin's good friends lent me this book to read in January and I read it immediately, soaking in all the details and coping skills I could. Reading it for the second time now, I realize I read it out of desperation the first time. I wanted someone to tell me what to do, how to grieve, and when....oh WHEN would the pain stop.

At this stage in my journey I now know that there are no answers to those questions. This is a journey only I can take and only I will know what it entails. The pain...well I know the pain will never stop. How could it when you love someone with your entire being and they are so suddenly ripped from your life forever? I now know the pain will lessen, no...more like evolve. It has already morphed into a part of me that I live with everyday. A part of me that I have learned to live with, I have embraced, and I cherish. That pain is a representation of a man that I loved, and who loved me deeply. I would never want that pain to fully disappear. I am not a huge fan of the pop culture icon Katy Perry but she does say it so well in one of her latest hits..."This is the part of me that you're never gonna ever take away from me."

As I was reading the Man's Search for Meaning a passage stuck out so strongly that I spend an hour just sitting and thinking about the words. He was talking about his wife and his constant yearn to see her and his dream that they would be together when their suffering and pain was all over.

My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if my wife was still alive. I knew only one thing - which I have learned well by know: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases to somehow be of importance.

I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no idea of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."

This passage resonated with me so strongly the second time that I wonder if I even read it the first time. Or I was possibly still in so much pain that I didn't care about the strength of love and transcendence because I just wanted him to still be physically in my arms and I didn't care about much else.

Life is all about perspective and this book is definitely a tool on perspective. Once again...I highly recommend it to people who have never been through a tragedy, are going through one now, went through one 20 years ago, going through a divorce, lost a job....really any life shattering ordeals that has left them wondering how they could possibly go on any longer.