"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
I was on the phone last night with Shepherd (not his real name) a new friend, when his question about my faith caught me off guard; not because it was an awkward question, but because it reminded me of someone I have come to love very deeply, someone with whom I've lost contact, and miss terribly.
I met Maks (not his real name) online, in 2008. We exchanged emails for a week or so, discovering that we both were writers, both enjoyed creativity and clever conversation. We played twenty questions, two lies and a truth, and generally shared bits and pieces of ourselves. While we held back the details, like names and ages, photos, and such, we shared intimate details, childhood memories, family skeletons and inner struggles. He shared his fears with me, his greif over the death of his mother, his regrets where his children were concerned. Maks gave me himself. Maks was, I would guess, about fifteen to twenty years my senior. He challenged me, and wasn't intimidated by my brains. He celebrated me. He had an uncanny way of reading between my lines, and accepting me under the skin.
Maks was the first man who explained polyamory in a way that made sense to me -- though that's not what he called it. He simply opened his heart to me... gave me a symbolic set of keys, and told me I could rummage around in the rooms of his heart, ask any questions, every door was open to me, but one. That one belonged to his wife.
Maks and I marveled at the way our hearts raced when we thought of each other, at the easy familiarity, and comfort we felt exposing our innermost thoughts and feelings to each other. Maks lived in South Korea, and I in the USA, and yet, there was a connection between us that defied the geographical distance. We walked in the rain together, stared at the same moon, at different times, he told me he kept a clock on his desk set to my time zone, so he could know what was going on with me, on the other side of the world. Tonight, as I watch a meteor shower, I will wonder whether he recently stared up at the same sky.
Among other things, Maks talked to me about faith. He had done something I'm still struggling to do - he'd reconciled his relationship with God to what he knew to be true about man's ability - and what he believed man's design - to love more than one. Maks reminded me that even when I was angry with God, and did not talk to Him for months, that He was still there, loving me, looking out for me. Maks prayed for me. He prayed for my marriage; he prayed for my husband and children by name. When my sister was nearly murdered, he prayed for my extended family, and he encouraged me to trust God.
Maks encouraged me to grow, to learn, to challenge myself beyond my limits. He loved me, and I loved him. We did not use the word love. That was one of his boundaries. Those words belonged to his wife, his lifetime partner. I respected that. Instead of the word love, we used the work know. For truly, the more we talked and wrote to each other, the more we knew each other, and he learned me well. Maks told me one day a story about a couple he'd read about in a science fiction novel. They used a repeated phrase, every time they parted, to express their love for each other. I can't remember the original phrasing, because we adapted it to fit our situation. When Maks and I would end a voice call, or a text chat, we would always say to each other, "Thee, and thou, Maks...and "Thou and thee, Phem."
Phem was a play on the word feminine, as Maks was a play on the word masculine. We were very much simply male and female. We were able to connect on a very deep emotional and mental level. I've never experienced anything quite like that with anyone else. I miss it.
I knew that there would come a day when Maks would log off, and not say goodbye. He knew there would come a time when his committment to his wife would mean that he would close his email account, his account on the website where we met, and stop writing with me in google docs. We talked about how meteors burn white hot... and vanish all too quickly. We knew that we were enjoying the intensity of an amazing relationship that had no guarantee except honesty, and an eventual expiration date.
I had no idea, the last time I spoke with Maks, the last time I heard his voice, his laugh, the catch in his throat when he said my name, that it would be weeks and indeed, months before I realized that he was truly gone. The thought has been in the back of my mind for several months now, and last night, talking with Shepherd about him, I realized how very much I miss this man.
Maks had a huge impact on my life, his gifts to me forever changed me. I don't regret the love I felt, the love I still feel, I only wish I had one more conversation, one more story to write together, one more message, left at the bottom of a google doc.
If I knew he were going to read this, I'd tell him what I always told him:
I miss you terribly, and there will always be a huge room in my heart that you carved out for yourself. Sometimes, I go in there, and sit a while, and feel your presence. Thank you, for giving yourself to me.
Thee and thou, Maks. I know you.
"The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough."
-Abdulkhaleq Abdulla
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Keep Your Feet, Readers.
