Surviving Loss

Before healing can take place, one must survive the trauma and agony of losing a loved one. But how does one survive? What is needed for survival after a tragedy?

If a person gets seriously wounded in an accident or out in the wild, she needs someone to take her to a place of safety where her wounds can be cleaned and dressed, where she will be nursed and nourished back to strength and health. If left by herself, her chances to survive are greatly diminished.

The same applies to a person who suddenly lost someone close. She needs her community and friends to shelter her, to nurse her, to dress her wounds and catch her tears with flowers, love, prayers, nourishment. She needs the communal presence wash onto the shore of the desolate island of grief on which she dwells, receive wave after wave of kindness, compassion, care and sharing. She needs to know that she is not alone, that there is love, great love, that there is an ocean of love ready to carry her sadness.

Each time a small gift is left on the shore of her island, each time she beholds its message of love and care, she is touched, and her heart quivers. Each quivering of her heart stirs up the voice of the heart.

The voice is gratitude, and no matter how infinitesimal, it is a shining jewel amidst anguish and despair. It whispers, I am loved. It murmurs and breathes. It says, Thank you, thank you for loving me and sharing my grief. Thank you for holding me. The voice of gratitude is sustenance for the aching heart. It keeps it beating.

It cradles the heart when it wants to break once and for all, when there is nothing left to live for. The voice of gratitude knows beauty, knows hands folded in offering, and the blue dome of the sky. Though the tears are endless, and the pain of missing the beloved face monumental, though the gaze is broken and the body numb, the heart recognizes the gesture of giving. It recognizes itself. It aches and mourns and weeps and rages, but it can not ignore the remote echo of grace, of love itself. It can't help it. It must abide.
Love is the greatest power, it says, Love shall prevail.

Each gesture of love, each giving - a flower, a tray of homemade cookies, a poem, a handmade card - is life-giving nectar to the grieving soul drifting towards the great divide. They are beams in the raft that carries her back to the shore of the living, announcing her belonging to the great mystery.

July 2008

Buddha Smiling in the Plum Tree

One day, when I was able to get up from my bed of illness of the previous four days, I noticed our plum tree in the back yard in full bloom. It looked so beautiful with its white flowers against the blue afternoon sky that I couldn't take my eyes off - in fact, I couldn't even remember having ever seen it so beautiful. The tree, though rather old and gnarled in trunk and roots, looked like a young girl dancing with the wind, leaving as tokens of affection white petals on the ground around her, giving herself away, lighthearted and smiling.

A small sadness welled up within me, still weak from battling fever and flu. I wanted the tree to stay in the glory of her garment and delight my eyes; but she shook her head and whispered: Silly! Don't you see? There are so many! There is so much to give!

And I realized something I hadn't seen before. One can see the tree loosing her splendor as she lets go off her flowers - but one can also see the same tree passing on the treasures of her spring, giving them to the wind to play with. This reminded me of my oldest daughter who often leaves bracelets, hair clips, shells or special pebbles with one of her friends. I would see Hanna leave in the morning for school with a handsome assembly of sparkly barrettes in her hair - and pick her up in the afternoon without a single on left. "Oh", she would casually say, "I gave them away." There is so much to give.

But what was there to give now? I had the flu, felt miserable, and was barely able to sit up in bed to drink my tea. I certainly wasn't able to give anything right now. Giving seemed to come from a place of abundance - abundant energy, resources, time - none of which I possessed at the moment. I felt like I was being pruned of the many branches that I usually associated with giving: the branch of being a mother, the branch of being a teacher, a wife, a homemaker, a cook, a daughter and friend. So what was left to give?

My husband frequently came into my room to check in on me, asking if I needed anything, and his sweet caring presence guided me to another aspect of giving: giving to oneself. I had spent so much time and energy attending to the branches of my identities that I had forgotten to nourish the very roots of my self. Gratefully I gave to myself.

As the hot blade of fever dutifully fought its battle I felt my mind and its ability to think, scheme, analyze and project slowly shrink - as if being scorched in the trail blaze of fever, until all that remained was a keyhole of awareness. Through it streamed the sharp brightness of sensations as I drifted in and out of sleeps mercy cove: The coolness of a washcloth on my forehead, the voices of my children ringing like silver bells, the lava of my breath laboring from my mouth. There weren't any thoughts, not even words - my mind was utterly quiet. I was nobody, I was the experience. I was the cloth and the water, the bells and the breath.

I was laboring, like I had labored during the birth of my children. Just like I had wished to give birth naturally, I had decided to ride the waves of this illness without medication to ease the physical discomfort. I had put my body on the anvil of pain, and arrived at the very edge of my self. My self-imposed images, my cravings and fears and everything that usually gave me a sense of uniqueness, separation and individuality had dissolved. There was no before, and no after, but only the all-consuming Now. Nothing mattered there, I was timeless existence. I was free.

The lure to return to the world of identities felt strong at times - like when my little 2 year old trundled into my room, stood next to my bed and looked at me with a mix of uncertainty, disappointment and longing. Tears would well up in my eyes, wanting to hold and nurse her, wanting to be mother. I considered taking aspirin to kill the aches of my body and have moments of mental clarity and interaction. But then I saw my longing for what it was - an usher of suffering - and smiled at her, not now my sweet!, closed my eyes and returned to the place of no thought and no desire. I saw the smile for my daughter reflecting itself behind my closed eyes, and then I saw her leaving the room to play with her siblings. I saw my children being born and learning to walk; and I saw the flowers of the plum tree ripen into fruit. I saw my children picking fruit into their little blue bucket, the juice of sun-ripened plums running down their faces, and then I saw the leaves falling. I saw the rock at the base of the tree where I had buried the nine week body of my miscarried baby, and I saw the tree come to life again - a symphony of white clusters, amidst its branches Buddha, with eyes closed, sitting and smiling.

He was sitting there, watching the world from within, watching it with all its beauty and ferocity, with all its departures and arrivals, struggles, passions and fulfillments. He smiled, and I smiled, a smile that flowed with tears from my eyes after the fever had broken, and the light of the world filled the windows of my soul once more with colors, shapes, patterns and sights. I was overwhelmed with love. Everything was so absolutely perfect, beautiful, and precious. I felt like I had just given birth, my heart paper thin, vulnerable and untouched like the web of skin between a newborn's fingers. Just as I had held my babies in my arms after hours of intense labor, I now cradled my self like a precious gift.

I had gone to a place of total surrender, both during childbirth and during this illness, and, upon returning, was blessed with the gift of a newborn heart. It felt like seeing the world for the first time - a spectacular place of endless beauty to be worshipped, savored and loved. I prayed to God to remind me each and every day to see the beauty of this world as an invitation to joy and happiness. Help me, I prayed, to become more generous, to love more, to give more - as much to others as to myself. And as if to respond to my call, the wind brushed the plum tree and catered the miracle of a dozen heart shaped petals into my cupped hands.

March 2005