Shining Like Gold

“Grief is alive, wild, untamed; it cannot be domesticated.” Francis Weller

My father’s little treasure chest is cyan blue; I painted it that way, with faint silver brushstrokes that shimmer. Metal rivets line the seams across its wooden surface, and gargoyles guard its opening latch; one of them lost the ring in its mouth somewhere between Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. A minister’s family is like that: parts of self scattered across the Bible Belt. 

When I was nine years old, behind Grandma’s house, she fished that chest from her shed overflowing with memorabilia from Dad’s childhood. The day it became mine, I decided I was now a king, and I’d fill it with magic. Back then, it was plain brown, staying that way until I embellished it twenty years later.

Inside the chest, there are two levels which I painted copper and red. In the bottom, beneath a coat of yellow, I inlaid a bill of Singaporean money I’d gotten when I was young from a missionary. They were always passing through, sharing dinner with my family, leaving me coins and paper money from countries I was just beginning to spell. I still have a few of those coins.

On the top level, beneath a coat of red, an inlaid bill that says LOVE. From Burning Man, I brought back a stack of those bills the year my wife and I separated. In order for me to finally come out of the closet, it took her leaving. And while I believe that love is our highest currency, at that moment, loving myself came at a price of intractable loss I’d never before felt. 

Into the O, fitting perfectly, I glued an ovulate Boulder Opal, its iridescent cracks appearing deeper than the chest itself. In bright sun, I’d gaze into its fiery facets; merge with what exists outside an ability to describe in words.

Grandma had given me more than a hand-me-down: it was an enchantment, a story that’s continued to change meanings. What was once carved in Japan in the 1950s has now aged into a continuous redefinition of myself.

Soon after I received the chest, I glued in a chipped mirror from one of Mamma’s makeup compacts just inside the lid. It is now yellowed and cloudy, but when I was young, I’d open the chest and peer into that mirror, its answers to my mysteries, perfectly clear. 

That’s how long this chest has accumulated decorations of my life. Forever losing and finding myself again, it’s hard to tell where Dad ends and I begin. When I hold it in my hands, I feel him—and the weight of years it has been in my keeping. 

A body, too, is a treasure chest; it carries both riches and gloom. 

When my love is close, I am like jewels in his palm. When he pulls away, I again become my father’s disowned son. Yet it’s this very dance of extremes that our love unearths; I am just beginning to oscillate therein with joy. To not pack the car and drive away when I am feeling broken. Today, I’m standing firmly in my own feet. 

He and I are mid-way through our seventh year together. Often, I’ve waited for him to rescue me from my father’s grasp; to fill me up where nothing can reach. But the deeper we go, the more painful it’s become to mine him for riches. Not because his love isn’t enough, but because the further I claw, I learn again and again that, all along, the treasure has been within me. When will I stay with myself? The mirror is always there. 

A few nights ago, we were mid conflict—about sex—the source of nearly all my conflicts—with every significant other I’ve had. Ever. I’m beginning to understand what, for me, that really means.

The wildness of my anger escalated in the sinking coolness of his inertia. We were fire and water, matter annulling itself. We wanted to fuck, but couldn’t move; our naked bodies, mere inches apart, unable to touch. I wanted to scream at him as he laid on the rug not knowing how to answer me. Of course you don’t. When have you ever? His eyes mirrored this impasse; shutting down, his maneuver toward safety. 

Because of a significant amount of work around this, I didn’t scream. But I realized we are at an end: of scripts, of dodges and defenses. Time to pack the car, or—

A beginning, if we dare. But my body does not know how to hold desire in the depths of this vulnerability that, between us, surfaces…yet. 

So we laid there. 

Hating. Yes, hating. 

Each other? No, not really, not when you look underneath. 

Where peering into vaults of despair requires a hand to hold. 

We laid. We laid. We laid.

Until we got unstuck. It could have been a couple of hours, I don’t know; it could have been my whole life, the way it moved like goo, my heart in my hands, my cock in the shadows.

When we finally broke through, we fucked each other. And the greater pleasure: We’d made it to the other side of a body quagmire, a soup of family legacies. Such discipline to stay when a brainstem sees fangs in a lover’s eyes. The sex itself, it was so so, but we’d found our way back from the underworld: What more could we expect from starting over, defenses dropped like rumpled clothes? 

Since then, we’ve been oh so naked. 

Taking off clothes is the easy part. Holding my head high in the residue of childhood requires a death of cherished illusions. 

The next day, we created a shared grief ritual. We’d leave behind, at the river, a precious, personal item: a symbol of giving up part of ourselves to make space for something new. And we continue to wonder: What can be made of bodies with new stories to tell? Because defenses, like life histories, leave us reeling when, at last, they are gone—little boys in their place. 

Like it or not, all sex begins with the inner child. 

More than ever, we believe in our love—and its power to expose what hurts. To recover what has been buried by churches, families, and gods:

Worth. And a body that fucks like it’s brimming with the stuff. 

I waffled over what to get rid of. Almost chose a pendant I rarely wear. For a few days, that was going to be the thing. Next, a couple of random items that mean little to me. 

Though I love the sound of it, the way it flits right off the tongue when reading it from a bumper sticker, it’s not so easy to “let go.” Or believe that he truly wants to reach me—if only I’d ask. And if he can’t, what of it? And just who is it anyway that’s left me coiled on the rug, frozen? 

My body bores with old stories; I want something new. A novel headspace.

So I scoured for something that runs deep: that little blue chest sparkling in the corner of my eye. A long time ago, wizardry was my highest aspiration, that chest its reservoir. 

And that’s it! What I’d turn loose: my staunch magical beliefs about love. My demands that he rescue me from my own shut-downs, struggles to show up, and retreats into fantasy—especially when his touch stirs, in the shape of my father, an aching heart.

I picked up the chest; opening it, I rummaged through years of what I’d forgotten. In its murky mirror, I could barely see my own eyes.

My former wedding ring. 

A note from an ex-boyfriend thanking me for taking care of him; congratulating me for moving on to take care of myself. Am I? 

A sack of those coins from missionaries. 

A knife I found at Burning Man and haven’t once used. 

This last one: a message from a deceased friend urging me to follow my passion, to know when to let go. 

This little blue chest: my need to be pursued; the freeze of my body when choosing myself; a wearisome threat of abandonment; my need for his attention to feel good about myself.

Then, the next morning, I changed my mind. I’d send it to my father. Yes, that’s exactly what I’d do. With a letter enclosed; an honest declaration of everything I’ve needed to say but never broached. I pictured him receiving a mysterious package in the mail; him opening the box, wondering what is this little blue trunk…then…tears that’ve been stifled for a lifetime when he recognizes his very own long-lost magic. Opening the lid, he’d see LOVE from his son. Weeping, he’d call me. A new beginning: bodies with new stories to tell.

Finally, I’d touch my father’s heart in the right place: saving us: for both of us.

For a couple of days, I plotted my letter. It’d be more than ten pages—was that enough?

And yet. 

No letter can solve for me how I reject, abandon, and numb myself. How much I’ve sought love outside of me. Winning him back was exactly what I’ve always been trying to do. And in every relationship since. 

That’s that, I’m getting rid of the goddamn chest. I congratulated myself. 

A few days before the river, our elderly dog, Shiloh, began rapidly declining. Over the past year, she’d been slowly crippling, heart beating weaker by the day. This morning, she made it into the backseat of the car by herself. I delighted. She’s doing better on those glucosamine shots, isn’t she? My partner agreed. 

The sun was just rising. The park was beautiful, a surround sound birdsong.

She’d chase the ball a few feet, stumbling. Not like her younger years when she’d repeatedly sprint football fields simply to comply with house rules. 

She began swaying side to side. Her head rolled back and forth; she seemed intoxicated. She couldn’t breathe, looked like she’d collapse. Our younger dog, Esau, noticed and ran to her side. Abruptly, playtime was over, so I helped her into the backseat to come home. 

It was an hour until our vet’s office opened, and I dreaded what they’d make me decide. But as I sat with her on the floor, her breathing stabilized; she seemed better. After a few more minutes, we decided to swing by the gym for a quick workout while waiting for the vet to open.

Less than an hour later, we were on the way back home. I couldn’t stop crying. I’d been avoiding her coming death, distancing myself from it each day, and now I’d be holding her head in my hands while injected chemicals stopped her heart. So much for avoidance. 

When we entered the house, both dogs were nowhere in sight—until we found them both in the bathroom. Shiloh motionless on her side, Esau with her. 

Her tongue hung sideways out of her mouth; it was purple, blood pooling in lifeless tissue. Her paws were cold. How long had it been? I had to figure out if it’d been just before we arrived, or just after we’d left; I was convinced that knowing would help. 

I sobbed on the floor. Petting her then felt like it’d always been: her head, the softest of any dog I’d known. A few times, I swore she moved, asked my partner if she was alive. Did he see that? 

“No, babe,” he cried with me. “She’s not breathing.”

I had to repeatedly make sure he wasn’t mistaken. 

Stroking her fawn fur, I cried harder. I couldn’t believe I’d gone to the gym; except that in going, I’d protested the truth, controlling everything as usual. Why couldn’t I have just sat on the floor with her after the park until the vet opened? If I’d known, I would’ve. But then she would’ve died in my hands, me panicking. I toggled these scenarios back and forth, reasoning whether or not it was better this way or that. Nothing was better. 

Just grief where was magic. 

Or maybe grief is the magic. Because nothing I could have done would have kept her alive. And though I despise hearing it when someone offers trite condolence, she did live a long and rich life. She died of natural causes at thirteen, old for a Doberman Pinscher. She didn’t die by a decision that I’d made to euthanize her. Magic isn’t about getting out of pain; it’s about finding diamonds in broken glass. 

When we dropped off Shiloh’s body to be cremated, the vet cried with us. She was sensitive and skillful. I wanted to hug her. She placed her hand over her chest saying, “When they die, it’s so terrible. They break our hearts wider so we can let in more love.” 

Not only is my heart breaking wider, letting in more love; so, also, is my body, my perception. 

For the next couple of days, I carried her collar with me, weeping; mostly for her, but also for reasons I couldn’t name. My eyes saw differently: my partner, my father, what remains of my own life. 

When we made it to the river, it was a Sunday. I thought about my father, in Texas: he’d be preaching a scathing sermon, florescent lights on the skin of a man whose rotting grief has become a toxic barrier to love. Or at least, love as I know it: the roar of water over rocks in the sun, light so bright I had to blink; my partner’s brown skin against mine; the center of myself, anchored, shining like gold. 

As I face the coming loss of everything in my body-world, I am a new body. Every day, changing cells. We need stories to make sense of what we feel: we have to change them in order to feel more. 

While my partner sat on a nearby rock, I pulled the trunk from my bag and opened it. And you know, old stories die hard—

Oh, I should totally pry out that Boulder Opal…It’s so pretty…I could do something with it, make a pendant or something…

I tested it with my fingers to see if it’d budge, and luckily it wouldn’t because letting go means really fucking letting go, fully grieving what has to be given up. Being a son, who is only a son, without a father’s mind to change. Learning that love doesn’t have to be chased, that I don’t have to be pursued to be good enough.

These old patterns have been my bones; I’ve only moved as they’d allow. 

My partner and I are at an end: the relationship as it’s been, a new one in its place. I welcome what comes, will let my body lead where my head has not yet gone.

Laughing to myself, I closed the lid and placed the chest on a flat stone near the edge of the water. I wished I’d see who’d find it. I pictured it in their hands, opening the lid, discovering that love can be found in the most unsuspecting places. 

Just look. 

I swam in the river; the water was cold, teal in hue. I remembered my partner and I baptizing each other seven years ago at Orr Hot Springs when we decided to commit. We’d scribbled intentions into a journal with distressed paper that looked like papyrus. We thought it’d help us reimagine what could be a meaningful experience, healing shared religious trauma. 

  Before leaving the river, we sat in silence. Tears on my face, Shiloh’s collar in my hands. It smelled like her. I gently rubbed the little pink heart engraved with her name. 

Since our ritual, I’ve felt her with me. Each morning, I spend time holding her close to my heart, letting in more love. 

Psychologist Francis Weller, in The Wild Edge of Sorrow, writes, “Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life force. It is riddled with energy, an acknowledgment of the erotic coupling with another soul, whether human, animal, plant, or ecosystem. It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed; it cannot be domesticated.”

My partner and I, we’ve been having really hot sex; we’re taking new risks. I trust him more—myself, even more so. He melts into me where I, too, have softened. Receiving is tender: I lie back, allowing his touch to nourish me where loss has purged. We see endings as more than pain. 

What a treasure it is to suffer, deeply, and with dignity.