I have been sick. Coughing so much that I’ve lost my voice. Yesterday (Sunday) morning was particularly bad. I could barely get out of bed. I obviously wasn’t going to be much use to the Citadel’s choir that morning, so I called in sick to get a few extra hours of sleep.
That afternoon, 1of2 sent me a text message. “Are you dead dude? I miss you” I was so touched! And, of course, I missed him too. But did I say that? No, of course not.
The last time I ate dinner at their house, as I was headed out the door 1of2 called out to me, “Bye Louie! I love you!” Once again, I definitely love him too. But still I didn’t say so to him.
This bothers me. First, I want to set an example for him that it is OK and good to express his feelings, although he clearly doesn’t need that. Still, I don’t want to set the opposite example and influence him to stop.
But secondly, and more importantly, I want him to know that I do love him and that I do miss him. But I just can’t make myself say it. Fortunately, I’ve gotten over my inability to hug him! So at least he (and the rest of the family) are no longer under the impression that I merely tolerate the boys. They know that I genuinely enjoy my time with them.
Now I am trying to buy them a Christmas present. For their birthdays I got each boy his own personal gift, but I don’t have the money to do that again, so I am trying to come up with a gift for the family as a whole. I would like that gift to in some way represent how much our friendship has grown, to express my love for the boys and my gratitude to the parents, but obviously I have an aversion to overtly putting my emotions on display. This is a long standing problem and I have been working on it for years, but I have never been so bothered by it as I am now.
I have one idea. And I can’t use it. On my Wilfred Owen page there is a poem: Impromptu. The second section is the perfect sentiment I wish to express, but I don’t know that I’d have the courage to use it, strong as it is.
Child, let me fully see and know thy eyes!
Their fire is like the wrath of shaken rubies;
Their shade is like the peaceful forest-heart.
They hold me as the great star holds the less.
I see them as the lights beyond this life.
They reach me by a sense not found in man,
And bless me with a bliss unguessed of God.
It perfectly describes my love for them (part of it, anyway) in a way that I think The Queen would interpret in a very positive way. I truly believe that she would read that “Platonically.”
But that isn’t the whole poem. So when asked where it came from: “Oh, it’s part of a Wilfred Owen poem.” Which leads to: “What’s the rest of it say?”
Yield me thy hand a little while, fair love;
That I may feel it; and so feel thy life,
And kiss across it, as the sea the sand,
And love it, with the love of Sun for Earth.
Yeah, that’s a bit harder to swallow as representing a mentor-protégé relationship.
