Somewhere In Loving Part 1

In the days following the end of World War II, Elizabeth Gaythorpe wrote a book entitled ‘Somewhere In Loving’. It was a story telling of the very close relationship she and her brother had known during their childhood in England – a relationship that continued into their late teens. When England declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, her brother joined the Royal Air Force to fly operationally in Bomber Command. He was lost in early 1943 – shot down over the Frisian Islands off the Dutch coast on a bombing run to Kiel, an important German naval center.

In her book she describes how she constantly ‘felt’ the ‘presence’ of her dead brother – even at times being able to ‘telepathically’ communicate with him. After reading Elizabeth’s book I visited her in England in 1970 – for after my own experiences in the R.A.F. during the war I was particularly moved by her story. And I have to say that on meeting her all my doubts about her narrative were dissipated. There was an indwelling spiritual quality about Elizabeth Gaythorpe – a serenity and ‘otherworldliness’ that lent credence to her account of indeed being ‘somewhere in loving’ during her life.

Sufficient to say, I came away pondering the persistence and the power of the ‘love’ she described: the supremely mystical nature of such a link… such as that contained in the following two verses – one from A.E. Houseman’s poem, A Shropshire Lad; the other from Francis William Bourdillon’s poem, Light:

If truth in hearts that perish

Could move the powers on high,

I think the love I bear you

Should make you not to die.

Houseman

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The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one:

Yet the light of a whole life dies,

When love is done.

Bourdillon

Over a hundred years have elapsed since Houseman and Bourdillon wrote these verses revealing the profound, metaphysical intensity of the psychological attachment that attends what is sometimes described as true love. As an old-fashioned ‘leftover’ from the mid-twentieth century, I can say that even as a lad in my late teens I was somehow aware of the difference between straightforward physical desire and the more unfathomable attraction of my girl’s character and personality…. seeing her as a rather mysterious creature with whom I naturally identified. Now, looking back, I would say that ‘true love’ goes far beyond physical attraction to­ represent a remarkable psychical bonding between two human beings; (not to rule it out as a phenomenon involving some of the so-called ‘higher’ animals – the Wandering Albatross, for example).

For as Houseman and Bourdillon reveal, there is a level of ‘loving’ that transcends the immediate happiness aroused by the physical presence of the one who is cherished. I can only account for it by saying that it evokes a sense of ‘belonging’ – the one to the other – that can really only be described as pertaining to a ‘spirit’ level of union…. and one that is not necessarily terminated by death. I think of Elizabeth Gaythorpe’s love for her brother as testifying to the psychic force majeure exerted by such unremitting love.

Recently, on the Oregon coast a man drowned in trying to save his dog when a ‘creeper’ wave suddenly engulfed them in deep water. The dog was swept out to sea as the wave retreated…. but ultimately was able to swim back to shore, helped along by incoming swells. Yet the man was lost. He gave his life for his dog – a sacrifice that testifies to the surpassing power of the love he felt for his canine companion.

But just think for a moment: the force we call instinct operates autonomously, unconsciously – we act without having to think about it. And the instinct to survive at all costs is a very strong – if not the strongest – of all the instincts. Yet here we have a case where the transcendent force of love overcame the biological mechanics of instinct. The man was responding to a higher order of ‘humanness’ – to that ineffable sentiment we call ‘love’. And I would suggest that to be ‘Somewhere in Loving’….is to be somewhere in Spirit – somewhere close to the Infinite, to what some would call the Divine.

And so the dog was saved. Would his owner’s act be any more commendable, or seem more reasonable, had he been attempting to save his child? The emotional and intellectual pain suffered if the object of one’s love is lost, does not discriminate between a child and a dog when absolute love is involved. And for the one who is left, the grief can persist throughout life, whatever material comforts and distractions are to hand: a grief so overwhelming that it can overwhelm the biological processes that support life.

A recent article in a monthly medical journal to which I subscribe, reported that there is a 21 times higher rate of heart attacks than normal during the first 24 hours following the death of a loved one; that as a result of grief, survivors die ‘of a broken heart’ – their words, not mine – but to which I would add my own: because the spirit of love was gone.