“I won’t keep you, Ava, I just wanted to…” He stops and reins in his emotions that were threatening to expel. It’s no use as his breathing becomes more erratic. “I should have expressed my love for you more often, I should have told you every day how much I cherished you, but sometimes I find it difficult to speak, sometimes I can’t find the words. Then the moments pass and time doesn’t stand still.” As he speaks his eyes glass over. “You don’t need to say anything, Ava, I just...before I go,” he stutters, “I just, I saw this, and I thought of you. I want to borrow the words I can't say.” His hand is shaking as he reaches towards me holding a book, he places in my hand, and as he walks away he turns back to me. “I will wait ‘til forever for you’ Once he is gone, the book becomes heavy in my hands.
Looking down, I notice the words “The Greatest Love Letters of All Time.” Housed on the front cover is a tiny envelope. With gentle ease, I open it. Inside there is a small piece of parchment. My eyes fill with tears as I pull it out and begin to read.
Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I’m resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I’m really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in Vienna is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I’ve just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a clam consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved, ever thine ever mine ever ours.
"Immortal Beloved"
Letter July 7, 1812
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1)
I stare at the letter. My heart hammers in my chest. Confusion filters through my blood. Everything I know is in question. I’m in disbelief. Complete disillusion. Alexandre has left me speechless. I pull out my phone.
Me: Thank you
Alexandre: You are my everything. Please remember that as you find yourself.
THE FOLLOWING DAY I’m sitting on the same couch in the same room that has become part of my weekly routine. We sit in silence, but the longer we go without sound the more it screams at me to speak. My words come out as a tangled confused mess.
“Alexandre came to see me. Oh my God, doc.”
“When was the last time you saw him? I know you speak occasionally.”
“Last time I saw him? Like, actually saw him? I don’t know a little over two months ago at the hospital. Can you believe that? You’ll never guess what he did. He showed up at my park, I almost started crying right then and there.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he knew, he knew to find me there. He came there for me. I never thought he paid attention to those details.”
“Sometimes the most obvious things are staring at us right in the face. Maybe he just needed his eyes opened. Maybe for Alexandre, finding you barely breathing opened his eyes.”
“He brought me this book. He said that he couldn’t find the words, so he’d borrow the words from Beethoven.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“It ripped open my heart. I feel like I’m bleeding out slowly. I feel so bad just when I hear his voice on the phone. I feel so selfish for doing this to him, but now to see him. That gesture. I feel horrible. I’m not worthy of that kind of love.”
“You did nothing wrong keeping your distance. You needed to learn to love yourself, first, you know it’s not selfish to love yourself don’t you, Ava? It’s not selfish to put yourself first for once.”
THAT NIGHT AS I sit in the park, I watch the shadows on the bench across from me. Their hands are intertwined, and their bodies are nestled into one another. The man kisses her head as they laugh and stare up into the sky. As I sit mesmerized by the sight in front of me, my phone chimes in my hand.
Alexandre: I cannot exist without you - I’m forgetful of every thing, but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. ~ John Keats (2)