Give me endless summers - Lord I feel the cold

Have you ever lost a lover, a friend or parts of your family – not through sudden death, but by slowly becoming strangers? Have you ever felt how much you have hurt someone by not being there when they needed you? The pain only comes long afterwards, when you feel their dear presence not any longer near, like a blank inside you that will never be covered by anything.

It all starts with small refusals to go someplace together - because of lack of time we always say (and know that there is more to it) - that damp getting-used-to pattern we know, that shallow i-do-not-need-more feeling, commodity to do anything else than the daily routine and a strong conviction that those who are near will forgive our smallish thinking and their dismissal. They do, indeed, but even the most patient cannot feed their picture of you only from memories.

After some time, when you realize that work is not all there is, and only calling your dear ones from time to time is not a solution, you want to go back and reconnect. But time can seldom be lived simultaneously by human beings. There is awkwardness around these meetings, unless the connection is stronger and not outlived. There is that feeling nothing new can be said, although so many things have happened in the mean time and there are worlds to share. You often find you’ve forgotten the words to their heart. That cold look they bestow on you, seemingly asking why you haven’t dropped a line for long, can only be surpassed by getting back in touch and regaining faith in the relationship. Some of us often do this when it is too late.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Toombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round
Of Ground, or Air, or
Ought A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone

This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go

(Emily Dickinson, After great pain, a formal feeling comes)