Holding

I woke slowly, in familiar yet unclear surroundings. Smells from my childhood brought structure to the edges of my consciousness – evoking warmth and sunlight and snow and adventure and safety. I could see fleeting glimpses of friends and family at the corner of my vision, as if standing just outside the room I was in; present yet elsewhere. 

I gradually became aware of a large creature next to me. In fact, it was not just next to me, it was cradling me in its strong, soft, furry arms.

The huge and gentle figure held me like an immensely delicate ornament.

It made me feel precious, but respected – not at all like the often crushing, cloying grasp of a parent or lover. Yet I knew this creature loved me deeply. More deeply than I had ever experienced in life.

As I woke fully, it stroked me slowly, causing tingling warmth to spread throughout my body in waves that crackled with a kind of soothing electricity – yet I could not pinpoint where exactly I was being touched. There was no pressure or focus; just a passing kind of attention.

It started telling me about the way in which I had died.

Its voice was deep and clear – simultaneously loud, but intimate. Almost as if it was whispering in my ear; and almost like it was speaking to me across some ornate desk as a trusted companion. It was speaking only for me. I had its full attention. Every word mattered deeply to it, and it wanted me to know that.

Even though it had done this infinite times – was doing this infinite times, with infinite beings – I was still the most important thing in the world to it, at this very moment.

The story it was telling me – the story of my death – was a soothing one. Despite the pain and suffering of my life, and especially those final moments, it felt good to hear it put in such perspective by this unendingly caring and understanding friend. 

As I had watched helplessly while my murderer held me down and slowly choked the life out of my muscles, out of my lungs; what had been almost worse than the physical pain of that constraint and dreadful suffocation were the thoughts of what my death would do to my partner. Surely she would imagine, perhaps in nightmares, but certainly in waking, what would have been going through my mind in those last moments. She would imagine the pain I would have been feeling. She would imagine the longing I must have had for her to rescue me, and the utter, primal despair at knowing I would never see her again. And worst of all, she would know that she wasn’t there in my final moments; wasn’t there to save me, or comfort me. Now, she can only relive my lonely suffering moments in a million different shades of pain.

As the creature recounted this, its voice was heavy with emotion, and its tears made the air thick and sweet and blood red. It described perfectly how the world is full of these moments of unrelenting misery, that swallow us up and spin us around and around and down into their never-ending depths, that start to make us believe there is no bottom to the ocean, there is no ground beneath our feet, that it was all an ugly lie and we could never again believe in such comforting stories.

The creature holding me was now silent for a few moments as I sobbed deeply for this suffering. I cried for myself. I cried for my lost love; for her pain. And I cried for the impassable gulf that would now exist forever between the two of us – or at least those two unique beings and their lives of beautiful innocence. 

As my tears subsided, I felt what was coming next before the words had emerged from the creature’s mouth. It explained that I would not be able to see her again – at least, not in the way that would make the pain stop, or turn back the time.

There were many things ahead of me, but none of them would be able to change what had happened, or bring her into that moment where I needed her, or deliver me to ease her grief. 

It would very soon be time for the creature to depart, or send me on my way – the two things seemed interlinked. But it explained that it would see me again, many many times, and that I would always be the most uniquely precious being in existence to it. 

And it left me with some advice. 

I would always exist with suffering. 

Accepting that won’t make the suffering any less. But it may help me love the suffering. 

Suffering is delicate, and must be held gently.

With that, the creature let me slip smoothly from its arms, and I was propelled forward.