LOVE, LOSS AND THE PROMISED LAND

04/24/23

We’ve decoded so many of life’s mysteries but one that evades us is how to grieve for a loved one’s death. Maybe you have been through it too. Amy is in it now following the untimely passing of her loving father. He left this mortal coil on April 19th, 2023 at the age of 80.

Life leaves us at different states and leaves our loved ones in different ones too. Age and sickness and tragedy and suddenly and slow decline… and tears and sadness and anger and injustice and a hole in the soul that feels like nothing else but permanence. This transformation is a place where regret is natural… because there is just never enough time. It’s the shadow in the ray of life and why we fear the dark. And as much as it is a part of our underlying conscious, it’s our true north and main directive and all of our life is lead in both opposition and respect of it.

And sometimes even in the pain we can reconcile death. And sometimes we can’t. And sometimes time relieves the times we can’t reconcile death. And sometimes it can’t. Her sadness is beyond nature. She understands nature. In many ways we can reconcile that the soul is beyond us and that this earth is a place of joy and pain but there is another world to dream of, one free of pain and injustice and the next stop along this fortunate, difficult journey, is one where all of our emptiness is fulfilled. It doesn't make us miss our love any less but it’s something to hope for. Without hope we are creatures of despair, spinning from chore to chore, not making enough time for our love, not stepping out of the shadows. Maybe to truly love is to surrender yourself to the inevitable. Each day is a fight against death but we still mention the word like an adversary we love to hate. Maybe it’s just love.

But I understand her anger. When your loved one goes into a hospital for one problem and doesn’t leave due to another that arrived within their walls... He had just retired a few months ago and his mind was still on fire. Enough that he knew and believed it was not time yet. Because it wasn’t… When you are dealing with humans, not saints, to save you… you are in part at the mercy of the human and who they are in their daily bodies. And sometimes they are saint-like and sometime they are punching the clock and sometimes they have good ideas and warm hearts and other times they have other motives and have built layers of scar tissue around their hearts because they are humans and flawed. And it’s not right and it never will be and it’s permanent so there’s no way to undo the wrong.

And it’s beautiful to see who reaches out to share words of purpose and condolences and how a stranger or newer friend can say the right thing that can momentarily soothe you, a neighbor from thirty years ago offers you anything, flowers arrive, and the check-ins break up the silence you’re stuck in… and it’s alarming how people you assumed would be there in the trenches of your tragedy have nothing to concede.

All of my years spent in indifference delivered only other hollowness. Did you know that some people will spend their time praying for nothing in return? Spending their lives giving selflessly to others. Amy’s father Jeffrey was one of those. It seems to me he gave to his loved ones everything he had to give... his wisdom and support and joy and virtues. He was an anchor… one that has moved on for now with the swaying, beautiful, serene tide. And even though we can’t see the anchor we know that it’s still there, grounding with its might and strength. And Rainer has his laugh and Amy has his wit and through his blood flowing alive and with purpose within you, he lives on.

I’m so sorry for your loss… and in awe of your love and courage and strength even though it can feel like there is none left, you are filled to the brim with his and he has left enough and taught you how to get through.

More soon…

PS Here is a poem by Robert Bly I found that echoes the above…

Time Runs Backward After Death

Samson, grinding bread for widows an orphans,
Forgets he is wronged, and the answers
The Philistines wrangled out of him go back
Into the lion. The bitter and the sweet marry.
He himself wronged the lion. Now the wheat
Caresses the wind with its wifely tail; the donkey
Runs in the long grass; and having glimpsed heaven,
The fox’s body saunters the tawny earth.
2
After death the soul returns to drinking milk
And honey in its sparse home. Broken lintels
Rejoin the sunrise gates, and bees sing
In the sour meat. Once more in the cradle his
Hair grows long and golden; Delilah’s scissors
Turn back into two tiny and playful swords.
Samson, no longer haunted by sunset and shadows,
Sinks down in the eastern ocean and is born.