Here it is, 11:45 a.m. Monday, no Tuesday, May 13, and I'm finally getting
to
write to you -- I wanted to get one out in April, but as it turned out there was
too
much going on around me and inside me for that.
Depression Is not quite the right word -- I've written a lot about Storms
and
Dragons and all kinds of things that the eat away at me or through me like fire
--
Really, all that stuff is a fire, but it's an inner fire, a spiritual fire --
so
many phases to the process of accepting death.
I don't say that I've gotten through them all, for sure I have not.
But, I've gotten through something and I'm beginning to be able to think about
my
dying in a more relaxed way, without feeling the shortness of breath, the
panic,
the tears running down my face -- all that is a little gentler now from having
gone
through some of the fire.
One part of that phase -- which is the longest and most intense for Ginny
and me --is the process of saying goodbye to loved ones.
The process of saying goodbye is really the process of saying hello and
living
into each
moment.
But sometimes (maybe all of the time) that is really done only when you
say
goodbye.
(Think about it, think about the tears and the words said when you say
goodbye
after a visit
with your loved ones. Think about how real are those
moments.)
I've had a lot of opportunity for that lately with visits from my cousin
Chris, my two
friends John and Lisa, and of course, Simone, -- with whom I say hello and
goodbye
in that way
at least once a week on the phone.
But really, it's been Gin and me.
We've been practicing saying goodbye to each other practically every day.
And in our saying goodbye, we have tears, we have lots of memories, there
is
lots of love & joy and sadness, and the understanding deepens each time.
(Yesterday, Sunday, May 18, we went to Forest Hills Cemetery and spent
two or three hours walking around, sitting in the sun at the lake,
watching
the birds, having pictures taken of us, by John, and beautiful flowering
trees, being with each other, thinking and talking about burying my body,
my ashes -- placed in the earth in this beautiful Cemetery. -- It was
an
excellent exercise in being present in the moment to each other.
And there's plenty of forgiveness.
Forgiving myself mostly.
But also forgiving others.
(As I have written in one of my other poems -- one of the longer ones, I have
had a challenge with forgiveness since it all began -- in my infancy, with this
time on earth.)
The forgiveness comes in many forms...
But there is light too.
This past weekend Ginny and I, and Lyton, met some other friends for a
concert
of JS Bach's B Minor Mass. It was a glorious event, glorious music.
The orchestra was very disciplined, playing every note perfectly. The chorus
and
the acoustics of the hall made the music sound like the ringing of Bells on
a
Mountaintop. I don't know how else to describe it. At the very end I had
the
feeling that Bach's music, the orchestra and the chorus, the maestro -- all of
the
musicians and the hall that we were in, was sending up the most beautiful
music
that could be created on earth -- was sending it up to Heaven -- and Heaven
was
receiving it and was sending its glories -such glories as one can only imagine-
to
us. Heaven was sending back to us its music. The two music making creators
mixed together and we in the audience -- and I imagine all the musicians as
well
-- we all were honored and privileged to participate in …
has
been like
creating moments of the light.
It is transformative.
Plenty of darkness, of anger, of pain -- all that yucky stuff that is so easy
to
wallow in --
has been there.
But it can easily fall to the wayside like a snake shedding its skin.
And move on.
And move on.
It is a mystery.
It is a journey and a mystery.
And we must carry on.
In the words of Margaret Rowell, my teacher of music and life,
a master of both, "We must carry on."
