The Importance of Being Earnest

{"How else but through a broken heart
 May Lord Christ enter in?"}

Many of you reading this blog did not know Marie as a student at a conservative Christian college. It was a tricky world to navigate for many of the students for a number of reasons which I won't bore you with now. But, as you can imagine, it was an extra challenging environment for Marie to a part of as a lesbian Christian. But watching her live her life in that world could also be quite humorous which is why I've chosen to share the picture and quote above. 

The picture, along with the quote, were Marie's profile picture on her facebook on Good Friday of her senior year of college. She loved Michaelangelo's Pieta, as did I. I remember it well, not only for the tears it inevitably brought to my eyes each time I studied it, but also as one of the many works of art that we viewed together in Introduction to Music and Art, Fall 2006, the class that began our friendship. 
Since the Lenten and Pascal seasons are by far my favorite times of year, I had a number of different profile pictures that I posted on facebook as I counted down to my favorite holiday, Resurrection Sunday. I wanted to use The Pieta on Holy Saturday, but Marie beat me to it. And I'm glad she did, because the quote that she chose added much to its poignancy. The quote is part of The Ballad of Reading Gaol. 

It was written by a gay man by the name of Oscar Wilde. 

I doubt that many people who viewed her facebook noticed that, but the thought of the faces of those who did recognize it amuses me still. 

Such lovely words from such an abomination. 


I'm not going to make a martyr of Oscar Wilde. I'm not going to tell you how he suffered for being gay, or how unfairly he was treated by his lover's father. I'm not even going to talk about the influence of Dante Alighieri on his life. 
What I will say is that he converted to Catholic Christianity on his death bed, three years after being released from Reading Gaol and after being separated from Lord Alfred Douglas for the last time. 
"Shadow and gloom" changed his perspective on a life, which had, up until then, been swanky and pretty flamboyant. Was he sorry for the sins for which he had been convicted? Was his conversion genuine? Your guess is as good as mine. Obviously, Oscar Wilde was familiar with the concept of living a double-life. Dorian Gray lived quite the double life, as did Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing. Oscar himself lived a double-life, though not a secret one, as a promiscuous gay may, and as a heterosexually married man and father. Maybe his conversion was just a stab at the image of himself that he saw as corrupted. Maybe becoming a Christian was just an advantageous name change; or maybe he had changed himself into the man he was all along. Whether it was contrition or attrition, a broken heart was the catalyst that precipitated his unexpected conversion.


And now, with a thoroughly shattered heart, I wonder what I am supposed to do. I wonder what conversions I should make.
Three months ago, I was quite certain of who I was supposed to be. I would be a loving wife, a partner to Marie in a challenging and joyful life. I would be Mommy to our daughter Charlotte and our son Gabriel. I would be a business woman, raking in the bucks for Recreational Equipment, Inc. I would eventually be a quirky Savta, always ready to don an apron and feed her grandkids before heading out to catch butterflies with them in the woods. I would love and take care of my wife, children, and grandchildren all of my days, and I would die happy, sitting in my rocking chair on the porch with my black and white hair in messy-bun pigtails. I would be remembered by my family, and they would leave notes and flowers on my grave for years before I dropped out of my family's memory. 
Maybe this whole fantasy was an abomination. Maybe God knew that I wouldn't turn loose of it, or more specifically, that Marie and I wouldn't turn loose of each other, and so, in His wisdom and mercy, He separated us before we could do further damage to our lives. If that's the case, I don't want this all to be in vain. But I don't know if that's the case. I don't know that at all. 
I lose many hours of sleep wondering if Marie is in Heaven, begging God to help me understand that it was all a huge mistake. I lose even more sleep when I wonder if that's not where she is at all. And it's in those silent hours, that fear grips me, paralyzing my lungs, numbing my skin until it squeezes hot, itchy tears out of my eyes. 
I don't know who I'm supposed to be. I don't know if I'm supposed to repent of this horrible, two year mistake, or if I'm supposed to mourn my wife like a normal spouse would. I don't know what is expected of me, or rather, demanded of me. If I repent, how can I mourn her? If all of the dates and hand-holding, and love-making were wrong, what memories can I cling to? If we are damned, what to I have to look forward to after I die? 
If I repent, is it even in earnest?


I cannot speak for Oscar Wilde, but I can say this of myself: My conversion would only my desperate attempt to undo what cannot be undone. It would be my heart's cry to bring her back, to let me have another chance. My broken heart does not want to be healed; it wants to have never been broken in the first place. I am not sorry for my mistake, if indeed I made one; I am sorry that I am suffering the consequences. 
I don't want this heartbreak to be in vain, but I think it just might be.