Category Archives: Grief

CRYING IN THE DARK

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November 10, 2020

Yesterday I posted a letter I’d written to my eldest daughter. I was trying to express what I feel is needed during this time of great division, intense suffering and for many, myself included, confusion.

I suggested deep listening. I said we need to choose to divest ourselves of judgment and find the courage to be open-minded and open-hearted to one another. I said we need to find the strength to question our solidly held positions — what if there is more to the story? What if there is truth in the beliefs/truths held by others that seem in opposition to what I have believed to be true? What if the information we have trusted, proves itself false?

This morning I deleted the post.

I woke up feeling more heavy hearted than I have felt in some time. I’m feeling the intensity of the pain that is washing over this whole country, my family included. The pain feels worse, more intense, than it did before.  The division feels more solid than before. I feel the heat of the anger and the rage leaking into the air we are breathing.

I’m frightened, for my own family as well as the country. I don’t know what my role is during this time, but my heart gravitates to wanting to bring people together to heal. Despite whatever is being reported, whether it is true or not, and no matter who is behind the terrible things happening and predicted, I know in the deepest part of me that we have to find a way to stand together and not against each other. Somehow we need to find a way to figure out and see through what is the lie, and what is the truth. 

But this morning I feel ignorant and confused and it seems impossible to ever bring everyone together around the table to remember that loving one another is most important.

But still…and yet… well…

I know that we need to consider that each person is “our other self” as the Alaskan Unangan people believe. Who would harm their own selves unless they have lost all hope and all faith in themselves and others? We cannot lose our hope or our faith…

But how do we manage this “coming together”? What do we need to do?

How do we spread the message to “DO NO HARM”?

How do we find the courage within us to open our eyes and see the common ground we all stand upon, and the common values and desires that bind us together?

How do we find the strength to work from our common ground and our shared values to stand against this darkness?

How do we help others to find the courage to put aside their mental, emotional and physical weapons and disengage from the brain washing that urges us to fight each other, reject each other, unfriend each other…that we need to go to war in order to bring about the conditions for peace and prosperity? 

How do we remain beacons of Light in this darkness?

LIGHT AND WATER WALTZING

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March 2, 2020

MOMMA IS DANCING

My mother once told me as we stood on a bridge overlooking a creek, “After I die and you see the sunlight dancing on the water, think of me. I will be in those sparkles. I will be part of the Light.”

My mother always loved to dance. I wish my father had taken her more often. When she lived alone she would put on a rousing piece of music and dance around her house. It was her exercise. Now, whenever I drive her somewhere I have classical music on. If it is upbeat and cheery she will wave her arms as though she is dancing or maybe conducting the orchestra. A big smile on her face, she will exclaim with childlike wonder about everything she sees.

In November I noticed an advertisement at the library for a dance class for folks with Parkinson’s or other disorders affecting mobility. I took her to one. She was in a terrible mood when I picked her up. But a few minutes into class she was smiling and doing her best to follow along with a dozen other people sitting in a Circle doing an odd mixture of ballet and movements to support brain pathways. Dancing in chairs!

Momma needs all the brain support she can get. She suffers from vascular dementia. She was only able to attend the class twice as she began to rapidly decline from Stage 5 into Stage 6 of her illness making it much more difficult for her to process information and also for her brain to direct her body what to do. Only six weeks later she is stumbling now and then into Stage 7, the final stage of this disease that devours a brain.

Occasionally she will cling to me… “I’m going to lose you!” she says.

“No, Momma. You won’t lose me. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

Her eyes pleading, she shakes her head. “You will lose me. I’m, I’m, I think I’m slipping away.”

She’s right. We are losing Momma a brain cell at a time.

The other day I sat on her bed holding her hand after a severe episode had left her exhausted and sleeping. Whatever bitterness and disappointment still lingered in the holes and scars in my heart because of who my mother was not, because of what she was unable to do or give, because of what she didn’t know…quietly dissipated like shreds of fog succumbing to the Sun.

She was Enough. She is Enough. I gaze at her withered and ruined body in which she holds Divine and Sacred Light. Her body is a vessel meant to be filled up with Love. Mine too. All of us. Our bodies are vessels meant to hold Love and Light. She did her best to do so in the ways that she understood.

She did her best.

And soon, Momma, you will be that Light I see waltzing with the water in the bay.

WHAT’S UP WITH HER?

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APRIL 17, 2018

THE MOODS OF MOTHER NATURE

One day last week…

I open my eyes to a lightening sky, grey melting into translucent blue — faint streaks of pink deepening into rose; setting the sky on fire. The ball of the Sun, orange and shimmering shyly peeks over the hill. The rosey clouds turn yellow then white as the Sun gathers all the color back to himself, now a flaming golden sphere slipping through the trees, breaking free, leaping high above the rooftops. Piles of charcoal grey clouds come racing across the ocean of sky, sails full. Soon a ceiling of slate has slidden into place, closing off all view of yellow Sun and blue ocean sky. The light of the Sun filters through — a cold drizzle of grey the color of water.

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Three days ago — April 14, 2018…

I wake up in the dark of dawn — the windows and doors are rattling, a great howling swirling about the eaves. After breakfast we decide to drive down to the Lake. It is difficult to open the back door as the wind presses hard against it. Running for the car, my mug of tea is nearly snatched from my fingers.
Arriving at the pier, we stand stunned watching Mother Nature roar and rage. FuryShe comes twisting down the Lake, pushing 12 foot waves over the pier walls, beating against the lighthouse, the bridge, and flinging herself as far out upon the land as she can reach, seal coating everything in ice: people, lamp posts, benches, birds, bushes and branches of trees. The parking lots are filling up with water. I stand silent, leaning into her, witness to her grief. My coat is crunchy with ice. My mittens stiff.

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Today — April 16, 2018

I drove past the Lake this afternoon. She is flat and brown, the color of rage spent.  She quietly kisses the shoreline.  The Sun is breaking up the clouds, shining through.

 

* Photo of Duluth Lighthouse on the shipping canal taken by David Jensen on 4-14-2018. Used with permission.