Beautiful Box

Curtis Van Alen Joyce

It’s been a year and a half, my love, since you kissed my lips and walked out our front door to go paddle down the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon sun waiting to caress your cheeks and feed your soul as you spent quiet time under the Canyon walls. I will never forget your boyish charm as you packed for that trip and eagerly anticipated your time with God and with your closest friends. Even though you never walked back through our front door, your heart is still so much a part of mine, I’m not sure where you end and I begin. So, I write to you now to share my thoughts on another piece of our story…

I often speak of strength. The strength I speak of was much needed today as I opened the box that your ashes have rested in quietly over the last year and a half. The box that has sat silently for so long was ringing in my ears as if encouraging me to sit down and face another piece of the process. Over the last year and a half I have longed to open it yet fiercely hated the idea. I have wanted nothing to do with the box yet find comfort in it’s presence. Conflicting emotions dancing in the rain.

I know, my love, that you are not in that box. You are so far up ahead that I can consciously express that I know this box doesn’t matter. But, as I already know this, it doesn’t change the current reality of my pain. This pain hasn’t changed over the last year and a half. It is still unbearably sharp, overwhelmingly jagged and so hot that my body physically reacts to the memories that I conjure up when I think of your name.

My love, this is our story, and today was another chapter. I want to share it with you now.

As I walk down the hall to get your box of ashes, all I can think of is your body. A longing that cannot be expressed in earthly terms, flows through my heart and into my mind. I imagine your strong arms and your smile that melted all of our hearts. I reach out and pick you up, a box that holds my whole life sitting quietly and nestled on the shelf as if it could stay there forever, if I let it. All I can think of as I feel the weight of the box against my palms, is that I don’t want this box. I want your smile and kiss and hands and eyes and beautiful mind. I I don’t want this box.

I put on some of our favorite music and I sit on the floor. I put you in front of me, the shirt I have seen you wear a thousand times still wrapped tightly around the box that holds your ashes and bones, all of the Curt that I knew in his earthly body now sits in front of me. It is all there. Wrapped so nicely and sickeningly put together that It blows my mind how crazy this life is.

I don’t want this box.

I slowly unwrap the twine and release your shirt. I hold it as if you are still in it, smelling your body and struggling to stay in the present when all I want to do is go back to the past. But, the past is gone, swept down the river to the next eddie, waiting to be discovered again during our next journey.

My mind races to the time I spent with you after you died. Your body laying so still, so seemingly correct. You were quietly laying on your back with your hands crossed properly on your stomach. I think about walking up to you and holding on so tightly that I couldn’t tell if you were the one that was cold to the touch or if it was perhaps my body that had lost its warmth, our lives being confused for one last time while I still had you here on this earth.

I am startled back to the present. Here we sit, my love, your box on the floor and my legs sitting cross legged, not wanting to move a muscle. I lay the shirt on my lap, hoping that it will be my shield, my strength in physical form as I open the cardboard box that contains the urn. The silly plastic urn that I chose out of the book of packages that the nice funeral director gave to me as I numbly stared at him during the most grueling time of my life. Here you are ma'am, cremation or burial, casket or urn?”

I don’t want this box.

My mind goes back to when we met. That day on the river when I was so terrified of whitewater and you were my fearless guide. I think of your blue eyes that effortlessly stole my heart. I think of how I gave you my phone number and you thought it was going to be a tip… only to realize later  that it was the best tip of your life. I smile and weep. Where did that time go?

I struggle to get the urn out of the cardboard box. It sits snuggled in the box, comfortable in the place it has rested over so many months. I get it out and read the words that are written on the outside. Curtis Van Alen Joyce. March 18th, 2014. Grand Canyon. Flagstaff, Arizona. I weep. My body reacts to your name next to an end date. I don’t want this box. I want my charismatic, handsome, strong as nails, husband.

I think about the time that we said “I do”. I think about walking slowly down the aisle to you as your eyes filled with the most genuine tears you had ever shed, my love. I think about our house and our dog, our most imperfectly perfect life that we created together in Portland. I think about kayaking and hiking and singing and dancing and making love. I think about love and the endless possibilities that are born with jumping off of a cliff hoping that something will catch us when we fall.

The urn opens and I pull out the bag that holds your ashes and bones. I hold it closely, my tears spilling down my face onto the plastic. I think about the song that is playing as I hold what used to be your body. I think of you singing this song and I cry even harder. It is too much, this life is too much. I weep for the life that we had and the life that was supposed to come.

As I weep I think about the times that no one knows about. The secrets we hold close and the times of wonder we shared together alone.

I hold you closely for a while and then I gently put you back. Safely stored until we set you free. I know that time will come, my love, and I know our story will continue onward.

As I take your shirt and wrap you tightly back up, I wipe my tears and look straight ahead.

I have learned so much, my love, in these last 18 months. I have learned that what matters most is the love that we all share together on this earth. I have learned that the truest thing there is will always be there, but we can’t always touch it. I have learned that the world is spinning out of control and my heart aches to let go of the reins. I have learned that the extent of my strength is something that surprises me daily. And today, my love, I have learned that this box is a beautiful reminder that this life is undeniably temporary and I will be reunited with you once again. Until then, I leave you with this..

I love you equal, I love you to the moon, I will love you for eternity.  

Charismatic Energy

There is something so electric in the charismatic energy that some people possess. This world is full of diverse, colorful and beautiful people. We walk next to each other holding tightly to our own realities yet bumping shoulders with those whose realities are completely different than our own. Some we pass without noticing, while some stop us in our tracks. Their light brighter than the rest, their energy so full of life it reminds us that the world that we are walking in is filled with wonder and is desperate to be uncovered.

I think these people are here, all around us, yet rare in their own form. Some are bogged down with the weight of life while others may have been through the same heaviness yet bear no outcome of the weight, only a sparkle that continues to shine brighter as they grow in their understanding of life. The energy I speak of is buoyantly optimistic, light and free in presence, and flowing through beautiful eyes that shine with hope.

When this energy enters the room, you can’t help but divert and look. Their presence is a window to a possibility that awaits. It is their rare confidence that draws you in. Warmth of heart is evident, strength in character is strong, and an understanding of the importance of love is the backbone to the energy that flows freely from their soul.

There is something so electric with the charismatic energy I speak of. It changes something, ever so slightly yet permanently altered. Their energy solidly shifting this story of life to a story that continues to hold true to a hope for the future, hope for love to continue to win.

With eyes that shine and a gentleness that will make others continuously feel at ease, this electric quality is one to strive for. As I look back on the countless letters and notes sent to me from those who loved my husband almost as much as I did, I smile remembering his electric, humble, stunning, deeply compassionate heart. As I move forward I know I will be drawn to those who possess these same qualities and I will forever see a piece of my love in their eyes.

Love will continue to win.

The Secrets of Our Eyes

There is a silent gentleness in our eyes. The kind of quiet strength that comes from living through different colors of pain. Colors that are painted by limitless experiences that vary from person to person. Adverse experiences that shape our hearts and minds to be a powerful part of the world that we now know.

It is far too often more than what some can relate to. This quiet strength that I speak of can be intimidating to those that have yet to come to know it. A strength of beauty and of pain, paralleled evenly and shining through our beautiful eyes. Some look closer, drawn by the raw beauty, while others turn away, frightened of the pain that is too real, reminding them of the absolute certainty of what is yet to come.

There is a secret that is shared through our eyes as we desperately search for understanding of what is going on around us. We all are facing the same obstacles only in different forms. My secret pains are different than yours, but are equal in their measure. Death being only one obstacle in a world that seems to be constantly paddling upstream. The all encompassing moments of our past add to the weight of our eyes that shine in the current moments. Our eyes slowly becoming indefinitely intriguing by the moments that are spent here on earth.

I secretly search others for their stories that seem to shine through their eyes. I wonder about their history and about their passions, the times that have aged them and the times that have taken their breath away. I wonder if they have felt their hearts melt with passion or their pulse fiercely quicken with desire. I wonder about their agonies and what keeps them awake at night. I wonder if they are wondering the same things, inquisitive to the mysteries that surround them.

I wonder if our eyes hold the secrets that can unlock contentment.

Part of what makes our stories complete is filling in the pages of our life with love that comes from those around us. Our eyes shining with others in them. Our stories intersecting together for a brief time or a long road. Our eyes dancing with a light that shines brighter when others are around. Our powerful stories that reflect pain and beauty, will be shared through the heart of our eyes. Our silent strength being passed on to those who may need it and back to us when we need it once again. The perpetual flow of life.

Living Into Our Moments

I believe that all too often we spend our time feeling as though we are walking this world without a purpose. Wandering around hoping that our eyes will become open to the possibilities that surround our current time, and for some, not even absorbing that there are theoretical possibilities that encircle our very beings. Some of us getting caught in the trap of our own paradox.

For reasons unknown to us, time is continuing to be granted to those still walking on this earth. Time is made up of moments that are drifting away slowly. For some, these moments are lost without utilizing them to gain a better comprehension of the purity of enlightened knowledge that is within our reach.

I am here to start the process of believing in this meaning. The meaning of living into our moments and using our time to begin to understand our purpose.

This precious time that we are currently in, is being granted to us now from a hand that is bigger than we understand. Literally being poured out as I write these words, or as you kayak down the river, or while others sit at their old familiar desks.

Time that has a mutual relationship with places we do not see with our eyes.

Time that is made up of moments that are beautiful and excruciating and terrifying... and sometimes all of these things at once.

Time that is of its very core, spiritual. Eternal beings working to figure out what our current time is all about.

I believe that part of our purpose here is to search for that meaning, the meaning of time, while believing in the current moments that we are in. The complex dance of doing both of these things without agonizing about what the next moment will entail.

We are blessed with questions that surround our consciousness. Why am I chosen to be in this current moment while some are not? How can I be the beautiful person that was mindfully made perfectly in every detail, while I continue to walk forward with mistakes around every corner?

Mistakes are the fears that we hold onto.

We are constantly standing on the edge of something bigger than we know. I want to know that edge, be comfortable with the curve of the side and hopeful that the understanding of what is on the other side will be shown to me as I live in this moment.

My fear is that our current moments will become obsolete if we fail to live into them. Replaced with something new, always hoping that the new moment will be better than the last. Waiting for a second chance when the first is being presented gracefully with our purpose wrapped tightly in the center. Our purpose is within these current moments. Some are quiet and some are loud. Some shake us to the core while others drive us to tears. Perhaps part of the answer of our purpose lies in keeping an alert consciousness while beginning to live into our life-changing, all encompassing, quiet moments.

Rivers and Cliffs

This life is leading me down rivers that I never even knew existed. From the valley of my home town to the mountains of my new, I am enamored by the river of life that makes up the pages in-between.

I have fallen in love many times in my life. Not just in relationships with other people, but with other passions that take up my time. I have fallen hard and fast without leaving room for the idea that not everything works out. Somehow, during these times of jumping off the cliffs hoping that the water is calm below,  I have realized that the experience of jumping can be just as powerful as the mind blowing love waiting below... and I now know the depths of the risks associated with these jumps.

I continue to walk on cliffs.  Following my heart to new places with risk that at any time the side of the path that I am walking on may crumble into the river below. It can be terrifying and exhilarating, all wrapped up together so intricately that I can’t tell the difference between the two extremes. As if they are the same emotions playing dance together in the rain. A beautiful dance being played out on the side of this cliff, hoping for the best but being content with knowing the worst is just around the corner.  

As I walk along this journey with raging rivers below waiting to catch me when I fall or when I choose to jump, I am continuously transfixed by the moving water below. My eyes search for normalcy, trying to define new ways of normal in an ever changing journey of rivers and cliffs. My hands reach out to touch the cliff walls and the water below me. My heart search is complete, in these moments of silence. Content with the knowledge that I now know the depths of the top and the bottom.

I cry out for the past and am enamored by the future. The current moments hold my attention, my eyes looking to what is standing next to me, quietly surrendered to these beautiful moments that are making up every page of the journey onward.

As this life leads us up and down valleys and mountains, the river is waiting for us. Calling out to remind us that this cycle of life will continue on as we choose to play it safe or find love by finding the perfect place to jump off of the cliff.

Take My Hand

I am changed by the alertness of the reality that was once unknown to me. My body is awake and aware of knowledge that was once foreign ground.

Silence sits next to me as I long to reach out to take your solid hands that are now only a memory in my soul. I picture your hands, intertwined together with mine when I saw you for the last time on this earth. The same calloused hands that once held me tenderly and made me feel like the world was a place of wonder and not agony, rested so peacefully as I grasped them with all I had.

The same hands that 6 months before took mine and became husband and wife, ready for years of adventure and beauty, laid quietly folded on your pendelton that I had seen you wear a hundred times.

I remember taking your hands as your body rested there on that table. The quiet room was so still and void of life, or maybe that was my own self, my reality becoming confused with the actuality of the existence around me. My hands searched for yours that day, in that room, while you were quietly waiting for me. I knew you were waiting for me, you always were.

I felt it was magnetic, the pull that brought us together every day, and that day in particular as you waited for me in silence. It’s hard to explain to those around me, that unseen force of power that existed between our souls. Love. Love is what that is and love is what this life is all about. 

God is love. That sentence is powerful and worthy of our energy to understand it's meaning.

I walked into that room with hesitation, scared of death and scared of my reaction to the emotions that our culture doesn’t talk about. But, it was you, it was always you. Waiting for your lady, waiting for your love.  I took your solid, calloused hands that day and didn’t let go. If I held them long enough they stopped feeling cold. For some reason that's one of the things I remember most about that time with you, that I wanted your hands to feel warm again. To come back to life and touch my cheek as you had a million times over. Instead I touched yours, tenderly touching where your cheeks were pinked by the Grand Canyon sun. I thought about your time out there, on the river that you love. Gratitude for your time out there flowed from my soul like a river that cannot be stopped.

I sit here now and think about this time, this time that seems like a lifetime ago. I have changed. My normalcy is skewed from the enlightened knowledge that comes from experiencing what is real during this time on earth.

The short, powerful life of my husband inspires me to take the hands of those around me and change the world while we are here.

Curt's hands that accomplished so much during the time while he was here, provokes in me the courage to do the same. This journey continues, I am all in.

Love is what nourishes our existence- Paulo Coelho

Temporary Existence

Your voice lingers in my memories, these memories that are fading quietly into the distance. I desperately try to grab hold, clawing my way back to the times that made sense. Because, this time doesn’t make sense anymore, or, I have found, it makes perfect sense, depending on the way that you look at it.

You see, before you died I believed in this temporary existence more than I believed in the unseen realm that continues on forever. But, now that it is the time that exists after you are gone, this all just doesn’t make sense anymore. This temporary, tangible reality makes no sense to me. What makes more sense is that you are still here, just out of reach, listening to my voice and smiling at the way I move my mouth or give a sideways glance when I am nervous. You are still here and waiting until we all join you in eternity.

For, how can you have once been here, full of the most genuine, boyish, electric, charisma, and then in an instant, be gone forever?

Our temporary existence is lingering all around me. Examples reminding me that it is true, this is all a fleeting time, moments slowly evaporating like the fog that hovers over the river at dawn. So temporary that I struggle to understand if it is even really happening. And, if it is happening, where do these moments go after they are gone?

For, if I am not mistaken, my eyes see these moments take place and my heart fills with joy as they play out. Then, they are gone, evaporated into the flow of the river that separates the beginning from the end. Where does this temporary existence go? Are these moments still here, everywhere and nowhere all at once?

I think so. They must be. Because, those times, those precious moments that only you and I shared, make up the all encompassing love that radiated out of our skin. Skin that was so electric to our touch, full of so much life that there is no way it dies. Those moments that I can’t relive with another person while I am in this temporary existence, ache to be talked about, ache to be laughed about, and ache to be cried about. Anything but stuck in my head without hope of leaving my tongue.

And so I will do these things. Laugh and cry, live into the memories of our temporary existence because there is no other choice. I will do this alone until we are reunited and can do this together. I will also make new memories, full of life and wisdom that only comes from living into my reality. A reality that I didn’t ask for or predict, but a reality that is part of our story. This story that continues on with my eternal soul living in this temporary existence until it meets yours once again.