... for Wendy ...
I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
The one thing that has ever given me solace is words. They have flowed onto the page since I was old enough to hold a pencil. I still love the smell of a new box of graphite, wood-bathed and numbered with yellow paint, sharp with memory. I remember climbing the steep hill behind my grandparent's house - one with mismatched rooms, no air conditioning in raving summer heat, winter's cold abated by an oil stove - and in my back pocket, a warming spiral note pad.
Even as a child, so young that now I cannot ascertain the exact age, I was winded climbing that steep precipice. I had to stop to catch my breath, so vertical the ascent. I marvel now, remembering the small herd of cattle on our land and how they traversed it horizontally, wearing out paths in the grass that connected ladder-like lines across the fields. Once I reached the top, I ran to a grove of walnut trees. They were in the center of giant oaks, almost a secret circle in the inner depths of shade. I built a den of sorts from fallen sticks in the middle of that tiny wood. A place where I could sit on the ground, pull out my tiny sheets of paper, those made from the very thing that gave me shelter and such joy, pressing an alphabet into the threads of pulp.
Sometimes, I wrote down simple words that I learned, or descriptive prose. I found syllables luscious and loved them for the way my tongue curled to sound them out. Other times, I composed poems about things that mattered to me. As young as I was, innately somehow, I knew full well the power of my shadow. I once wrote an ode to the very thing that surrounded me, a mystery I could not quite name, remembering now only a couple of the lines.
The walnut trees look sad to me.
I don't know why.
It was as if I already understood that there is no separation between humans and the feeling world that houses us, gives us nourishment, medicine, beauty, and release.
For the past three months, since the day I learned that my son was murdered, my life-long solace of language left me. No matter how hard I tried, no sentences would come. I wrote pages of gibberish, captured notes of ideas that I wanted to explore, connections and questions that I so desperately wanted answered. To move through and come out on the other side of this grief. The more I tried, the further I sank into desperation, until I finally gave in to silence.
I stopped writing.
Yesterday, in my first act of fear-based normalcy since the pandemic began, I wandered into my favorite bookstore, a small and locally-owned business that smells nothing like the suffocating chain that almost wiped out such treasures. As I lovingly perused the tables of new releases, careful not to be casual in my touch, selective of the covers I actually risked infection by picking up, a title screamed at me from a sideways glance, Why I Don't Write. I could not help but laugh out loud at the book-length manuscript about not writing. A masked man more than six feet away, turned in my direction, curious as to what might be so funny in a world that seems to have forgotten how to be amused.
I cradled the book in my hand. Its cover simplistic compared to the digitized artwork of many modern collections. Split in two distinct halves, the top part was merely letters that named the author and her intriguing title; the bottom half, a single black and white image. It is a photograph of a woman, her kitchen cabinets and appliances blurred in the background. She is flung across the table, head turned sideways, laying on the wood, her face blocked from view by both cascading hair and arm - bent and held solid with a coffee mug tight in her hand. The portrait smacked of everything I have been feeling for months. Futility. Desperation. Defeat. Panic. Deep-seated fear.
Would I ever write again?
I flipped to one of the many short stories inside, identically titled as the collection itself. Standing near the table of newly printed works, I read behind a triple-layered face mask, one that boasts a black background with dozens of floating books, teasing against my lips.
What do you do all day? she said.
In the morning, there is the counter with the tea pot and the bag of tea in the white cup, the milk from the carton in the fridge door, the chair, which chair, the paper, the notebook, which notebook, the folder, the letters on the screen, the emails asking, the computer keyboard—then it all stops.
She handed me the paper. “Here’s the bad news,” she said.
It takes courage to be happy.
My eyes kept staring at the last line, to the point of rapid blinking, much like the old computer screens that seemed to pulse when you paused on the keyboard, Pac Man-like and aching to eat the next set of phrases. It takes courage to be happy. In a world that no longer looks familiar, those six tiny words scream a truth that I finally comprehend, now in ways that I could not possibly have imagined even a few months ago. Susan Minot, in her first publication in thirty years, garnered in a relatively short sentence what I have been struggling to articulate so intensely. The fight inside me to get up every morning. A late-night scream fest that stuns my own ears. One lone hour after hour after hour past midnight that brings no sleep. Wicked nightmares so vivid that I am plunged out the backside of consciousness, gasping for air. But in the thick of it all, a part of me refuses to succumb to madness. Somewhere, penetrating deep from my soul, I know it's my shadow. I acknowledge its origins. It comes from the light. And courage is sometimes the simple realization that we all walk a razor-thin path of paradox. No rising sun without a waxing moon. No embracement of love without the experience of hate. No justice without iniquity. No bravery without spinelessness. No grief without rapture. No creation without bitter end.
It reminds me of so many conversations of late (or the sudden absence of those who cannot find any words to express) between well-meaning loved ones who say things like, "I want so much for you to be happy again" or "I read your blog and think to myself, enough already, Jan" or "You have to simply choose to feel joy." When I hear these phrases, uttered purely from a place of deep love, an ache wells inside me from the extra burden of being misunderstood. Sometimes I am able to table that inner exasperation, and know that those statements say much more about my loved ones than me. When I can be alert enough to that understanding, it takes the bite out of their words unaware.
A long-time and loving friend wrote to me that she is worried that I have been stuck in grief for so long, years actually, that she believes I need to find a way to develop new neural pathways in my brain, ones that can release the hormones which spur jubilation and blissfulness. Her ideas result from studying the myriad ways our brains run computer-like, with repetitions of thought waves and patterns that build into rigid structures. Something akin to driving the same route to work every day, so mind-numbing and rote that we arrive at our destination without a single recollection of how we got there. She reminds me that entire generations were lost in a single day in the Holocaust, sometimes one person surviving just to live out the rest of their lives without every single soul they ever loved. Those courageous individuals make it to another day. And another. And another. And they somehow flourish, despite their incomprehensible loss.
I know she is right. I am acutely aware of all my friends' truths. I understand that their utterances come from a well of concern so deep, it probably never occurs to them what it sounds like from the other side. I recently read about a woman who had lost her son and was trying desperately to understand why he was taken from her. She began working with a spiritual guru, and when she bravely asked him all the "why" questions, he scolded her. Woman, why are you so consumed with such insignificant matters? Your son is gone. Nothing in life is permanent. You suffer because you refuse to accept the façade of this existence. Why do you choose to be miserable?
Every single one of these examples (folk's good intentions) surely do have a leg in truth; however, in my mind, they negate and illuminate a wound that is so unbearable that it becomes treacherous when you mix it with a dose of shame. We somehow become lepers in a cave of untouchables. Imagine that within a short thirteen months and fifteen days: (1) your mother dies after years of fighting a long illness, time that you spent flying from one coast to another to take care of her; (2) you suspect that your brother either purposely or accidentally took his life after months of severe pain and injury sustained in a truck accident; (3) the person you are still in love with, after eleven years of life together, reveals inadvertently and out of nowhere that the love you shared has died; and (4) your phone rings on a spring afternoon, delivering the message that your 24-year-old son has been murdered, shot in the face by a crazed co-worker while on the job. What you are left with is the realization that not only has your life irreparably changed, your own self is unrecognizable, and you have migrated into an inconsolable state of being.
Yes, millions of Jewish people lost entire generations in a single hour of horror in the Holocaust. Yes, millions of Native Americans lost whole families in massacres at the hands of government soldiers. Yes, millions of African Americans lost countless villages of those they loved under the insidious hands of slavery. Yes, millions of gay people lost an unimaginable number of communities to the insufferable early days of the spreading AIDS epidemic. Yes, the ripple effect of grief and loss still lingers among the thousands whose loved ones perished on September 11th. Wars and famines. Natural disasters and weather-related catastrophes. And now ... a global pandemic.
In comparison, a personal year of compounded loss after loss, might seem small. But, to trivialize that experience, or to compare it to larger events, feels like the added slap in the face that the woman received when she looked to her spiritual teacher for guidance. I do not choose to be unhappy. I do not decide to be in pain. I cannot undo what has happened. I no longer know how to ignore the suffering that swells up every morning. Nor do I want to turn away from all that hurts me. If I am to honor the deepest part of my heart, the incredible depths to which I loved (and still do) these souls who are now forever gone from my life, I must hold this sorrow. I have to wrap it tenderly in heavy-laden blankets, rock it closely to my breast and nurture those emotions that fill every cell of my body with grief. If I do not acknowledge their absence, these emotions will consume me, and my capacity to love will cease. Such would be the most dishonorable act ... pretending that my heart isn't laying in pieces on the ground.
I realize that others are ill-equipped to help with loss. It's not their fault. Our culture pushes us to live a "happy" life. To seek excellence. To find true love and bask in it for eternity. Anything less is construed as failure, as if something is wrong with us if we sit in our pain. We are taught how to acquire things, not what to do when we lose them. Our society does not prepare us to deal with death of any kind. We are not shown how to build ourselves back up again, when all the things that defined who we are is snatched away. Those who try to help us when trauma occurs are simply at a loss for what to say. They don't know any better. They are afraid of our feelings. Often, they try to change the subject or intellectualize what happened. They do not hear us or want to talk about death. They desperately want us to keep our faith for fear of losing their own.
Don't feel bad, she's not in pain anymore. She led a full life.
He's in a better place. Be grateful he was here with you at all.
S/he wasn't right for you. You'll love again.
You're blessed that you have other siblings. He wouldn't want you to be sad.
God never gives us more than we can handle. You shouldn't be angry with him about this.
Don't cry. Someday, you'll get a new dog.
All we ever need is for those who love us to keep showing up. There are no words that will help. Simply sit by our side. Listen when we want to talk. Hold us when we cry. And know that all we really want is a witness to our pain. Someone who cares enough to be present, while we figure out who we are, as the next version of ourselves takes form.
Stephen Levine, the American poet and teacher who gave 40 years of his life to helping those who were dying and their caretakers, once asked the question, "Who are we, when we are not who we thought we were?" It reminds me of the film, Terms of Endearment, and the hospital scene where Debra Winger and Jeff Daniel's characters are having a reconciliatory moment, mere days before she dies. Within a few simple minutes, years of a contentious marriage and his long-standing affair with another woman seem to melt under the love that remains between them. Surprisingly, as they laugh together over an old tie he is wearing, one that she bought him years before and thought was long lost, he panics.
Who am I if I'm not the man who's failing Emma?
Who am I when I am no longer someone's daughter?
Who am I when I am emotionally divorced from my partner after eleven years?
Who am I when I can never again hold my child?
Who am I when I can no longer dance with my brother?
Who am I if I’m not the man who’s failing Emma?
The world is in its own process of discovering its identity again. Death is all around us now. We are grieving together as a species. The life we all knew six months ago is gone. I had to stop watching the news and reading social media posts. It is no wonder that I suddenly became speechless. What words are there to comfort any of us now?
I have learned that the only way to wade through grief is to stop trying. Stop pushing yourself, so desperate to get past it. Let the pain settle. Not around you, but in you. Choke down the sorrow with every swallow of spit. Let it glide through your body. As it cements itself to every organ, and it will, know that it is birthing another you. Not a new one, per say, but another. Grief molds us into an unrecognizable force. We are drilled down into the darkness to find that one crack that lets the light back in. You must let go of the person you used to be. I find it is not necessarily the loved one you miss that causes the deepest pain, it's the realization that you will never be the same version of yourself as when you were with them.
Last week, I was skimming through an article in Psychology Today, and I read that in order to get through the grieving process, the professional who wrote the piece teaches that healing cannot occur until we find another someone, another something to replace who and what we lost. Livid beyond rational thought, I started to crank out a letter to the editor. The author was a woman who specializes in working with bereaved clients, and had the initials Ph.D. after her name. I was enraged for those who come to her for help. But, in the middle of my fury, I thought, why bother?
There is no one who can replace the person you love. I do have other siblings, but none of them are my brothers. I might someday stumble upon another to be my partner, but I will never love them in the same way as I love the one just lost. I could very well find another human being capable of "mothering" me, but they'll never be the woman who gave me form and breath. I may hold another child in my arms, but I can never again gaze into the eyes of my son.
The founder of the Sufi Order in the West, Hazrat Inayat Khan, writes, God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open. Despite my best efforts to close my own, it is still wide. I have days where I am almost drunk with delight. It happens when the young geese fly over my home and their chatter is practically comical, loud and boisterous, and I want to shout out the window, "Hey! What's so fascinating that you can't be quiet in flight? What do you see up there that is so filled with wonder, you cannot stop talking about it?" I grin throughout the morning, watching their fumbling attempts to learn how to fly in that perfect V.
Other times, I am so filled with gratitude, not only for those I have loved and lost, but those precious souls who remain. I still have my career and a steady paycheck and can work from home. I live in a country, that while not without its own horrors, is still one of the best places on earth. My home is warm and full, replete with favorite foods. I have clothes to choose from and shoes to protect my feet. I am more than blessed. I have a full life, rich with deep friendships and caring, incredible neighbors who have adopted me as family, along with other relatives that soothe my soul.
This is the duality of my life. The black and the white of it. I walk on a razor's edge, never knowing which shade will cloak my heart. The swells in either direction make it difficult to function at times. I have discovered that there is no grey matter in grief. You're either in the light or in the dark. The only consolation I have is understanding that darkness comes from light. There is no separation. They are one unit, much like a battery that has a positive and negative charge. Somehow, I must accept the fact that there is always darkness. To embrace the shadow side of everything. Knowing that the universe is made up of these seemingly opposite, colorless bands, but in truth, they are spirals that work in tandem with each other. They both need to exist.
I find I am in a birthing process, much as the entire world is breaking open. We are knee-deep in creation. We are swirling together in the dark and the light. We are drawn to the duality. The mystery. I need to learn to surrender to this experience. It is as unpredictable as having a child. We must let go of the fear that birth happens only when the newly forming life decides to push its way out of the void. We are forced to wait. We have no choice but to be patient.
A few days ago, in an intense conversation with someone I deeply trust, I shared what I read in a Buddhist magazine: "Nothing happens to us, rather it is for us, and acknowledging that is the only way in which we can evolve." In order for that to happen, to experience growth from agonizing pain, I believe I must recognize my shadow. Not to discard it. To be open enough to receive its lessons. If I can withstand the reality of my own darkness, perhaps it will teach my humanness the things that my soul already knows: We are all beings of light. We are one human family. We are but a small part of nature. We are connected with it through the very energy that brings forth all sentient beings - the plants and flowering vegetables, fruit hanging low on the vine, insects that travel together in voting groups, wild beasts that know when it's safe to sleep, animals that flock and fly and burrow and swim.
I have to discard the notion of linear thinking. Nothing I have endured the past year will matter if I cannot accept paradox. Understand that everything comes from the light. Even darkness. I must embrace my shadow self. The part that can be so aloof. Inflexible. The side that houses a debilitating fear of engagement. Tells myself not to get involved. Not to be open. I have to look at my shadow, not in judgment, but to see what lies within it. To remember that my own darkness also comes from my own light. I cannot possess one without the other. This is the paradox. This is the lesson.
On the days when I cannot stand the tender-footed walk anymore, my bare feet burning over hot coals of loss, I take myself to the sacred woods of my youth. I sway beneath the bursting forest canopy and drink in the sun that filters through living branches. With every firm step onto the earth, I am more grounded and complete. I feel a part of the whole. I remember something larger, a multiverse that speaks to my mind in prayers. Voices of those who have left me, not behind, but beyond. I know that they are as much a part of my bones as the dust that lines these trails. I am comforted by nature, even when I cannot give solace to myself. These are the moments when I know that I am part of the light. And in that instance, I remember awe.
Sometimes, I am blessed with the same gifts of insight when I am outside of the woods. Like yesterday, when I was sitting in the warm sun, reading a new book. I heard a loud buzzing sound, so close to my ears that I expected to look up and find one of the "murder hornets" that have made their way from Asia to Washington State. But as I slowly lifted my head, I found a hummingbird, no more than eight inches from my right shoulder. She was so close that I could look into her brilliant eyes, the ones that can see an array of colors that humans can't even imagine. She hung there, suspended in flight, her iridescent wings flapping at 52 beats per second. They moved so fast that I could feel the breeze from the motion on my cheeks. As I turned to look directly at her, in a blink, she moved right in front of my face. Past my nose, a mere one and a half lengths of my hand, the tiniest of birds hovered, staring back at me for a very long ten seconds. Then as suddenly as she appeared, the hummingbird rose in a vertical appeal to the sky, and zipped into oblivion. And I trembled. And I wept.
I know that in order to withstand the birthing pains of this novel me - minus my mother, minus my brother, minus my beloved, and minus my son - I have to reach for the sacred. And even when I get so lost in the dark that I cannot hold my head up, failing to marvel at the mystery of constellations, I know something will eventually bring me back, like the precious hummingbird, to what I know is true.
We are not alone.
Reminders of the sacred can be as simple as recalling a story. One about a couple fighting on an airplane. Complaining about the long flight, their loud voices ignored the comfort of other passengers. After twenty minutes of listening to their aggressive angst and dissatisfaction, a Buddhist monk sitting directly behind the couple gently reached up and tapped the husband on his shoulder. He jerked around in anger, prepared to argue with the one sure to complain. Instead, the smiling monk leaned forward and quietly said in his ear, You are sitting on a chair in the sky.
As I discussed the difference between things happening for me, rather than to me, I lamented to my friend the sorrow of losing my words. I could not understand why that blessed release was gone. She thought a minute and then said, I want to hear from the woman who has figured out what that lesson is all about. It's her words that I want to read. While I am searching to discover all this interruption has offered, the one thing I am certain of is that it was necessary. There is a finite space in the human brain to process so much grief. At some point, you have to give into it and rest. You must surrender. You must let go of the person you used to be.
And to those who have tried to give comfort, offering in vain the only words they know to say, who stand by helpless and pray that I get back to enjoying the life we shared, I cannot explain my pain. I do not know how to impart the depth of the shadow work that consumes me. I can only offer assurance that there are moments when I am, indeed, happy. Still reveling in the bounty of the earth. Still drunk with joy as I try to count all the newborn herons learning to fish in the bay. Still loving and open.
Still here.
Mark Nepo, the beloved American poet, teacher, and cancer survivor, writes in his book, The Endless Practice, "To be a soul in the world, we must keep participating in the wisdom of an open heart, so we can be empowered by the life of expression. All this helps us to discover our own wisdom and to use our own gifts. All this helps us to become the particular person we were born to be."
In my soul's work, I am now more cognizant of the light than darkness. I have a greater capacity to hold love than despair. I possess a higher awareness of gratitude than bitterness. Most of those realizations have come from the other side of a moving veil. One that I am beginning to see is as thin as the sheets of paper I scribbled words across as a child, while huddled under a grove of walnut trees. Those that I long for in the flesh are but a whisper away. Even when my heart feels splayed across a never-ending expanse of unknown desert sands, I feel them as close as my breath. My mother and father, grandparents, every aunt and uncle, younger brothers, all my ancestors past, and my beautiful, kind-hearted son, I see them gathered around me. They hold out their hands and plead, Give it to us. We can hold it awhile. You come from angels. No one loves you more than we.
It is in those sacred moments that I find my lost words.
It is in their love that I can, once again, find me.