My love, when we had just started dating, and he left for Basic, and we only spoke through letters, and we would not see each other for a long, long while, he wrote to me and said he hoped that absence really did make the heart grow fonder, and if it didn't he'd have to kill the man who said it. Later, he wrote me back and said that the man's life was safe because absence really did make the heart grow fonder. I believed it. He believed it.

But, darling, whet the blade, because it's not true.

I have wondered, I do wonder, who said that, and why. I wonder if he gave her a sly smile and empty words just before he left, because he didn't want to see her tears. Or perhaps she whispered it to herself in a rage, in a fury, in a vain attempt to convince herself it was true. A tear-stained face, and a comforting kiss on a child's cheek, more of a promise than anything else. Maybe it's written on a gravestone somewhere. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I learned a new word the other day: specious. Specious phrase, absence makes the heart grow fonder. And why? There is something right with it. I am overwhelmed with affection when I finally see him after having been apart for so long, and I treasure my moments with him. I am dazzled by my faith after letting my Bible sit on the shelf and gather dust for a while. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. But it's not absence that does it. Absence introduces space for dangerous fantasy, tangled misinterpreted and misheard words, loose promises, and vain striving.

Creating distance, being absent. It will not make the heart grow fonder, not of anything. Not of faith, or family, or lovers, or truth. Absence, itself, is only absence. It is not fondness or love. Creating it will not solve the problem of fondness. And yet, it promises to solve problems with everything. Faith, family, lovers, truth. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe if we forget, we can be fond. We can forge faith and love and we can force them into the hole where what is real has been forgotten. If I only distance myself a little from my faith, my family, my love; if I only give myself some room to breathe, then I will be able to be fond.

Absence breeds apathy. However, working through absence--desperately trying to keep touch, desperately trying to close the gap that is necessitated by distance, trying again to understand what was initially misheard, wrestling, fighting, working--that can make the heart grow fonder, can make the heart grow stronger. And the greater the distance, the harder you have to fight. It hurts very badly, sometimes, to make the heart grow fonder. It's not as easy as absence.

Sometimes absence is right. Sometimes distance is just. But it does not make the heart grow fonder. It never will, not truly, not for anything.