recalling a friend

My friend, in friendship I am bound to you:

Wherever you set foot, I am the ground.

Since when do the laws of love allow

That I may see your world, but not see you?

#25: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Search words: friend

Following yesterday's quatrain on the search for a friend, I've decided to confine my search to friend. This quite early quatrain has a slightly different (only in the first line) initial translation by Zara Houshmand.

My friend, my companion, I am bound to you:
Wherever you set foot, I am the ground.
Since when do the laws of love allow
That I may see your world, but not see you?

source

When I was a child, television was not in every home as it is now. I was ten when the first TV station went to air and I was 14 by the time we had a set in our home. Until then, our entertainment centred around a large old radio in a wooden cabinet somewhat resembling the antique radio below.

antique radio cabinet

When this cabinet was discarded by my parents during a move, I was desolate because, with it, there seemed to go so many memories and perhaps also, in a sense, my childhood. It seemed odd to grieve over an inanimate object like that but truly it had become my friend. And when we recall or recollect a lost friend, the whole world that we associate with that friend can return to us, even if the friend is no longer there.

In more recent times, I grieved at the loss of a pet cat. She had been like a little mascot, a gift to us in hard times, a playful kitten and a sensual cat whose presence so often calmed our frayed nerves. Her body is gone but her spirit lives on whenever I can bear the pain of remembering her. It still hurts so much.

Remembering the radio no longer hurts, so clearly time is one of the great healers. Some have said, and I daresay that this is true, that once we've incorporated or properly integrated what the lost object (or animal or person) meant to us, then the pain will also dissipate and we can move on. I'm not there yet with my lost cat, no more than Rumi was there yet with his lost Shams.

Update: Sunlight has 3 other translations of this quatrain.