Maybe there's always one who's Orpheus, and one who's Eurydice. One who tries and tries but can't, and one who always dies. Was always meant to die.
Maybe there's always one who keeps looking back, keeps and keeps looking back.
In order to bring her with you, you can't look back, they say.
Maybe Orpheus looks back not just once, but every single moment. She is walking backwards, for all we know. And every time she looks, Eurydice dies all over again.
Here's a new lesson, from a new Hades -- or, from Eurydice herself. Keep walking. Keep walking. Don't let me shackle you. Don't look back. Not because I don’t want you to see me, but because I'm with you regardless.
So maybe for the first time in a long time, Orpheus doesn't turn back. She keeps walking forward, and feels, for the first time since she had met Eurydice, a lightness and brightness inside her. A lightness and brightness that extends white and feathered, reaching for the sky.
She is no longer walking from death, trying to pull memories and fragments of life with her. The memories come with her willingly now. Are simply a part of her. No need to look back to someone, if she understands now that that someone was never truly struggling behind, but embedded and glowing in her heart, urging her forward too.
She walks now with open eyes. Lets herself be drawn to things that shine. Lets herself feel that she can extend her brightness to others again.
If she loves again, there will again be one who's Orpheus, and one who's Eurydice. But she now understands, if she is Orpheus again, that she can learn to live with the pain and the love. And she knows, if she is Eurydice, she will give herself to those who remember her, continue to love them,
and urge them forward.