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WE CAN CREATE A PATH THROUGH GRIEF
6-19-09
From the moment of our birth we start losing
people from our life. The loss that seems most final is the transition
we call death. It is wise to think through and write out the thoughts
that can be our life preservers when the waters of grief wash over us.
I was honored to do the eulogy last week for a dear friend I
affectionately called Fabulous Funky Faye. Preparing my eulogy for her I
found a note from her she sent to comfort me in the death of my father
in 1990. Her note was attached to big bowl of soup she made for our
family at that time. Suddenly I realized that those who comfort us in
today's loss will not be here to comfort us when they themselves die.
Actually, they really will still be with us if we reach down and draw
out the finest memories they made with us and especially for us. Like
Faye's soup. As good as the soup was, the memory behind that memory was
the thoughtful love that impelled her to make it and bring it to us.
Digging even deeper into her heart is the memory of the loving, giving
person she was at all times. The dominoes of memory start falling in my
mind as I recall all the times she was kind, mindful and loving.
How I admired this earthy woman of great grace and courage. Over a long
period of years she had three brain surgeries for a tumor that was
non-malignant but kept recurring. During this time she lived through a
divorce and a substantial reduction in the material aspects of her life.
Rising to the occasion, she bought a modest home in East Lake and
touched it in so many loving ways that it felt like a palace to me when
I visited her. Everything in that house whispered to me, "I witness to
the creativity and inner beauty of Faye Rogers."
When you keep a personal journal it seems that thoughts that belong
together seem to migrate toward each other. On the same page where I
stored Faye's note about the soup I had written these thoughts from my
meditation of that day as I watched a butterfly outside my window: "Do
not fret this creation's short life. The butterfly's beauty more than
makes up for its limited longevity. You and all living things have
changed form innumerable times, yet your essence is intact. There is a
power in life that keeps us aware and intact through all these changes.
There is a power that preserves the beauty of all stages and experiences
within your intact essence."
Another thought that helps me get through these deeply painful losses is
the clear tendency of life to replicate itself and go on and on in a
multitude of ways. I moved into my present home in May of 1995. To my
amazement I counted 27 "tommy toe" tomato plants. They were soon loaded
with the sweetest tiny tomatoes I have ever tasted. There had been no
garden here the previous year because the owner had been terminally ill.
A neighbor told me he loved those little tomatoes and always grew a few
plants. But those few plants had left so many seeds that I had more
delicious tomatoes than I could possibly eat. All life is powerful and
bountiful like that.
An old blind singer named Pete Cassell branded himself all the way to my
bones when I heard him at the Pilgrim Holiness Church on Taylor Street
when I was a small boy. Every time I sing "I Know What It Means To Be
Lonesome" or any of his songs, he comes to life in my mind and soul. He
is as real and alive as he ever was when he had a body.
We will never lose loved ones if we allow them to replicate themselves
within our own being.
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