The Eternal Love of Mo Anam Cara

The first time she wore them she knew they were different. She could feel their energy. There was something really special about them that she just couldn’t put into words. It wasn’t just that they were beautiful to look at, of course there was that, but there was also a feeling that was almost electric that came from them. Maybe it was simply the fact that they had been given to her on their first date and what she was experiencing was nothing more than the exhilaration that comes with the promise of a new relationship. A budding new love. There was no way for her to know at the time that what she was actually feeling was the connection to a future world where she would be alone, and a connection to the greatest love of all. 

Tri gold bangles, intertwined and looped around one another. The perfect circles that are our lives, beginning and ending together. Happiness and grief, beauty and pain. Simple bracelets made from earths precious metals, representing eternal love and the man who would forever hold her heart. 

Somehow he knew. He knew even in those early days that the words he had engraved, “Mo Anam Cara” that would gently caress her skin would silently whisper to her in the days, months and years that would follow. Words of adoration that would settle somewhere deep within her soul. 

He had told her to wear them every single day but after his death she just couldn’t bring herself to put them on. She would look at them sitting in their beautiful crushed blue velvet box and just the sight of them would cause an emptiness within her heart. But every day she felt an almost magnetic pull towards them, to even just glance their way. She joked to her friends that they held some sort of power over her. But as darkness fell and in the solitude and silence of night, she wondered if it might perhaps hold a little bit of truth. Were they calling to her? Could they be calling to her? She would fall asleep wondering, but by morning’s light common sense would reign. 

On one particularly cold, dark autumn day she decided to head out for a walk to try to infuse herself with the healing energy of nature. She had been feeling quite melancholy lately. She didn’t picture her life like this. Although she loved the quietness of her solitude, she was alone and at times very lonely. She missed him dearly. She always felt better after having walked amongst the therapists that sit, laying in wait, hidden amongst the golden,rusted leaves that gently danced towards the ground all around her. All of her senses switching on, coming alive with each step she took. And then she heard it. A clinking sound far off in the distance. Faint at first but then slowly becoming a little louder. It was a sound from her past, one that she was familiar with but couldn’t quite pin point where she’d heard it before. But each time it rang out she felt a little spark ignite within. A jolt of positive energy flow through her. A smile landed on her lips. She felt the urge to run now and as her pace increased, so did the sound and the feeling that went along with it. As she rounded the corner to her house her smile and giggles were replaced by outright belly laughing. Like the ocean, silently drawn to the moon’s pull, she was drawn to this sound, to the feeling that it gave her. 

She stopped dead in her tracks at the end of her driveway. She now knew exactly what the sound was and where it was coming from. The smile that lit up her face only moments ago was quickly replaced by tears. But they weren’t tears of sadness, but those of joy. He had done it. Somehow he had found a way to communicate. Somehow he was still there with her. Letting her know that she wasn’t alone. That the joy that once resided in her and around her was there all along. She took a deep breath in and slowly walked towards the front door. She savoured every step as she knew once she opened the door that her life would forever be changed. She would not be the same person. 

As she approached the drawer that held the velvet box, the clinking sound became nothing but a whisper. Like a heartbeat slowing down in it’s final goodbye, it gently stopped. She stood silently for a moment, closed her eyes and mouthed the words, “I’m here. I hear you. I love you.” 

Gently she picked up the box and slowly opened it up. The bangles illuminated in a pale golden warm light. She felt them connecting to her before she even placed them on her arm. As they touched her skin and she slid them up into their place, a flood of memories of their time together flashed by her. Each emotion from that moment filling her. But then once she had them on completely in there final resting place the memories were replaced from those of her childhood, from her teenage years and the years leading up to the moment they met. Beautiful memories filled with happiness, love and joy. Tiny little moments she had completely forgotten about. Her smile once again returning to her face. She remembered. She remembered that girl that was full of life, of wonder and hope. 

The voice didn’t speak out loud but rather infused into her from inside, but she knew that voice and where it was coming from. It was his voice. And he told her that she was loved. That he knew she missed him but she now had a life to live and he wanted her to live her best life for him. Because of him. He wanted her to laugh again and to remember that little girl inside.  But that she needed to listen to her own voice now. To trust that voice. 

Throughout the years that followed, when she would hear the clinking sound of those bracelets on her arm or from inside their special box she would smile because she knew what it meant. That he was still somewhere watching over her, reminding her that she needed to reconnect to her joy, to her inner beauty and to that little girl inside. To live her best life. And so she did.