The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Barbara Davis

perhaps I’ve simply had too much life, too much sadness—too many scars. Still, I find myself drawn to those scars, a map of wounds that takes me neither forward nor back.

When so much has been uprooted—so many things lost—one must seek comfort in rituals. Even the sad ones.

“You have no idea what that’s like, do you? To wake up in the morning and not have the will to put your feet on the floor, to shower and dress and go out into the world where everywhere you look, life is galloping off without you.

“Dreams are like waves, babe. You have to wait for the right one to come along, the one that has your name on it. And then when it does, you have to get up and ride it.

We may forsake The Work, but The Work will never forsake us. It will fight to keep us, throwing itself into our path, again and again, until at long last, we pay attention. This is what it means to be chosen.

Every soul creates an echo. Like a fingerprint or signature that becomes infused in the things around us. Who we are. Where we belong. What we’re meant to bring to the world. No two echoes are alike. They are ours and ours alone. But they’re incomplete—one half of a perfect whole. Like a mirror without a reflection. And so each echo is constantly seeking its other half, to complete itself.

We traffic in the promise of happily-ever-after, but not all are destined for such fairy-tale endings. Some are unable, others unwilling, and still more have been taught they are undeserving.

Pain has a way of hardening us, each new heartbreak laying down a fresh layer of protection, like the nacre of a pearl, until we think ourselves impenetrable, immune to both our present and our past. What fools we are to believe it.

There is a grief worse than death. It is the grief of a life half-lived. Not because you don’t know what could have been—but because you do. You realize too late that it was there for the taking—right there in your hands—and you let it slip away. Because you let something—or someone—keep you apart. But when your time comes, you can do it differently,

“There are times for holding on in this life, So-So, and times for letting go. You must learn to know the difference—and trust your heart enough to let it break. It’s a hard thing, this holding on. But that’s where the faith comes in.

Love didn’t conquer all, heroes weren’t invincible, and lovers rarely rode off into the sunset together. Broken hearts stayed broken.

Every heart has a signature, a unique echo that ripples out into the world. And every echo has a match. When those echoes connect, they become so attuned that even if they be separated, they continue to seek one another.

There are times for holding on in this life and times for letting go. You must learn to know the difference.

There is a grief worse than death. It is the grief of a life half-lived. Not because you don’t know what could have been but because you do.

Lovers wound one another for many reasons, but in the end, fear is always at the root of it. It’s a hard thing, perhaps the hardest of all, to trust when we’re afraid—to open ourselves to the risk of forgiveness. But forgiveness is the greatest magick of all. Forgiveness makes all things new.