My divorce is almost final and he has been gone for about a month and today I got this e-mail from stbx's mother, who I have always really liked and now I know why.

I thought the poem might be helpful to others here.

Dear K,

I suspect this may not be the happiest of your birthday celebrations, but I wanted you to know that you have been much on my mind and in my heart these last months. I think of you often and wish that I could express my affection for you more directly than this. As I well know, and you are well aware, life doesn't always turn out the way we expected. But we endure, survive, and eventually thrive. That is my hope for you. And for T. What was, was. What will be, well, we'll see.

While this poem (which I've also sent to T) has the genders wrong and the circumstances very different from yours (and mine!), the point it makes is an important one to ponder at this time. This is merely the end of ONE triumph, with more to come.

With all the best wishes for you today and in the future, in which D joins me, love, C
And stay in touch!


Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven, Knopf, 2005

FAILING AND FLYING

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
come back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

That's really beautiful.

I, like you, am fortunate indeed to still get on very well with my ILs.

We (my girls and I) are spending Christmas with them, in fact. WH and OW are not invited. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Alph.

I am fortunate to have a good relationship with my former in-laws, well, x's parents but not his siblings. I hope that you may continue to enjoy that. It is always wonderful when it does continue.