Nothing To Say

Sitting by the fire on a rainy Sunday afternoon I have nothing for this page.

There's a great deal I want to say, but little comes to mind.

All the memories and wounds resurrected on this particular weekend through conversations with friends and loved ones have brought me to this odd place of nothing to write.

There's certainly enough fodder in my head to write a research paper on the effects of grief on our hearts, minds, souls, and most certainly our bodies, but I don't want to.

In fact, I want to escape all things grief, which if accomplished would have me escape most aspects of my life which is not something I want to do at all.

Maybe a brief documentation of the grief pandemic will suffice: It is everywhere. It leave us numb. It leaves us speechless. It leaves us exhausted. It leaves us in need of healing. It challenges us to present our meager loaves and fishes for blessing so we can offer ourselves as balm for the deep wounds. It only asks us to touch and heal what is right in front of us or on the phone. That's all. Not every grief, not every wound, not every need is ours to gently handle. Only the ones right in front of us. Only the ones others have chosen us to hear, to feel, to witness. 

It is in the acceptance of this task, this burden to carry, that we find our purpose, find our hope in the midst of such a pandemic of grief.

In the midst of having nothing to say.

Nine Tall Elegant Angels

Her first name is printed with a capital letter followed by lowercase letters, Edith, but her last name is printed in all caps, LARSEN. They're black ink letters written by my Mom onto a fabric label she sewed on the lower left corner of the back side of the afghan. The front of the wool afghan is decorated with nine beautiful angels dressed in blue and rose and pink robes and they're lovely, tall, graceful angels with each one standing a good 14" tall. Everyone I've ever known who's seen a real angel has commented on how tall they are, very tall in fact. So, it's fitting that the nine gracing the afghan are tall and elegant. And, they're old, which is fitting, too, because angels are eternal. I think this team of angels is close to thirty years old at this point. 

My Mom gave this afghan to Grandma Edith in the mid-90's to keep her warm in the "old folks home" in Sidney, Montana. After she died in 1997, Mom gave me the afghan because my Grandma and I had always been close.

Then, in 2012, it was time to add another name to the label. This time the ink was red and the name, Virginia Rowland, was written in my hand. I gave it to my Mom to stay warm when I had to place her in a care facility in Montana.  Six years later she died and the nine elegant angels returned to my room.

As the cooler, wetter Oregon weather is now here the angels are upon my bed most nights. As I write this piece I'm looking at the label with my grandmother's name in my Mom's hand and my Mom's name in my hand. It seems they accompany me, like these angels, as I sleep. They are part of the team that surrounds, holds, and keeps me safe.

Of course, in life each generation had it's struggles with the previous one. Mothers and daughters are often a lightning mix of love and conflict. Edith and Virginia were at odds as much as they loved each other. My Mom and I were no different. One of the graces in her dementia is that she always knew me and as she started taking her leave of this world she said, "I love you, Sherri" two days before she died.

For all the struggles and for all the love there is but one fact, one truth, one foundation: both of these women, Edith Larsen and Virginia Rowland, are my maternal heritage. This afghan reminded them they weren't alone, even when separated by hundreds of miles from the rest of us. Now it reminds me they were here and I am never without them.

I'm not in a facility and I don't think anyone has plans to put me in one (!), but maybe this is a good task to complete early, to handle, to check off my list: I need to add my own name.

Edith, Virginia, and Sher resting in the safe care of nine tall, elegant angels. 

What a comfort, what a relief.

 

Eleven Minutes Past 3:30 PM

Tahoe's concerns are delightfully simple: Breakfast. Dinner. Bed. Love. Outside. So simple. So everyday. So easy to follow. So satisfying. He has no need for books on mindfulness or classes on how to sit still in order to focus on his life. Nope. He's had it down from the minute he was born. He's not contemplating aging or wandering in the Forest or the Desert. He is questioning, though, why in the world I got a new car that he can barely get into, but over our many years together he's learned to make allowances for my weird decisions and always offers forgiveness for the more grievous ones. He's a very happy creature with little to no complaints.

However, even though he's not focused on getting older, it is indeed happening to him. Next January he'll be 91. He can't jump on the bed or into the car anymore. His back right foot does this little dangly thing when he gets up and he has trouble walking. A couple of weeks ago he felt so crummy that he refused a piece of apple. I thought he was near the end, but thankfully he got better.

He sleeps through much of the day and often offers his two cents when I'm on the phone at home with clients or talking with my Forest Dwelling group. He's always present. He's been with me since the beginning of this blog in 2009. I dread his eventual dying more than my own. When he goes he'll take my last connection with the life Rod and I shared. I see it coming and it makes me sad. 

In fact, there are many, many things that make me sad right now. At times I feel overwhelmed in measures I don't understand. There's no need to go into the list here, right now, today because all of us have the same list, the same concerns, the same pains. Mine are no different than yours. I have to wonder, though, how I got to this place of limited patience, limited resource, and limited energy. It's a matter for prayer and reflection. It's a matter of paying attention to what's happening just right now - not in 2 years, not in 1 week, not in 10 minutes. Just right now. It's all I have the bandwidth for anymore. I am aging, too. 

And here, right now, today Tahoe says it's time for dinner because it's 11 minutes past 3:30. 

What a delightful thing to do at 11 minutes past 3:30! To give my dog the same meal he's had for the past many years, twice a day, sounds fantastic. And he'll be grateful and happy and think I'm the best human being ever. That's a good feeling that eases all sadness and reminds me, even makes me mindful, that "in the end everything will be ok and if it's not ok, then it's not the end." Amen.

Mindful Bereavement

Mindful bereavement is a tricky thing. First of all, the frontal lobe of the grieving brain just doesn't work right. The firing rate drops which alerts the emotional brain to jump into action: "I can do it! I can make all those decisions and complete all those cognitive tasks!" No, no it cannot, but it tries anyway and this is when the grief fog, the grief brain, the less-than-mindful brain takes over. The simplest things become too hard and just too exhausting. In this situation, a
person believes "I'm going crazy and/or I have dementia." This is normal grief. This is what happens to a human being when she/he/they undergo the most profound of experiences: the death of their loved one. We are built to love and to endure. We are wired to be in community and to thrive. Death comes along and just blows it all apart.

However, and this is huge, we humans are astonishingly resilient. The same brain that temporarily loses its battle with grief fog and mayhem is the same brain that eventually reconvenes itself into a new normal and a new way of functioning. Once again it becomes mindful of all it has lost and all it has endured. It focuses on what can be resurrected from the mournful process of healing. And it does not do this alone. It completes this extraordinary remapping of life with the help of breath, movement, and the beating heart that remains. Within this reworking, this reshaping, this rebuilding of our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls we begin to look different. Just like this gorgeous old, twisted tree in central Oregon, we endure all that happens. We're twisted and shaped in ways we never expected and on the outside we might look brittle and dry. However, as unbelievable as it seems and despite the fact that our loved one is still dead and we're standing
a bit crooked, we're still here!

Yes, mindful bereavement is a tricky thing, but not impossible. Never impossible.

Often Impossible

When I need to write in order to reconvene my soul ~

 I often find it impossible.

When I need to pray in order to soothe the rough edges of the day ~

 I often find it impossible.

When I need to exercise to stretch my tight and sore muscles ~

 I often find it impossible.

When I need to communicate with friends and family on very important issues ~

 I often find it impossible.

When I'm virtually paralyzed by all that's going on around me

this verse from

 The Talmud gives me hope and peace ~

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but

neither are you free to abandon it.

Golden Gate Park Eucalyptus Forest

When I rode my bike across the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara forty-five years ago I was always careful to miss the hard ripened fruits of the eucalyptus trees covering the bike paths. A front tire hitting one of those things at the wrong angle was dangerous. But, I loved the smell of the trees and the colors of the peeling bark. The smell has always reminded me of my home state, California. This past June, on a walk through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, we happened upon a forest of these fragrant and graceful trees. I was transported back into my youth where my spry body navigated my bike to avoid all disasters.

Walking through this forest on this day, though, I was struck by all the trees leaning to the East. The winds of the Pacific had worked on them for a very long time. Like elegant ballerinas they held their poses in unison all bending the same direction. Even though the park was very full of people, the eucalyptus forest was quiet. It was lovely, but as with all things lovely there was another side. Nothing grows beneath these trees because their oils destroy the ground’s fertility. When fires rage in California, these trees explode spewing fire and oil into the wind to ignite other areas. These lovely trees of my youth are actually invasive species from Australia and are no longer legal to plant. The beautiful forest that sheltered us in June, as well as the trees that graced the UCSB campus in 1975, have a shadow side.

Truthfully, there are different aspects to every forest. And, the metaphorical forest we’re all dwelling in right now is like this, too. It’s beautiful, it’s elegant, it bends with the wind, it smells fantastic, old growth is peeling off to reveal beautiful new skin and, at the same time, it can prohibit other growth, it can explode, and its fire can rage uncontrollably. It is wise to befriend all aspects of this forest. It is good to trust the journey to unfold as it should because God has also created this part of the forest, even with its invasive nature and its penchant for spreading fire.  Elegantly peeling away all that needs to go and knowing that, at any moment, a flame might erupt bringing new avenues for purifying this journey, for clearing the forest floor, and for making changes my 18-year-old self could never have imagined.

Walking betwixt and between the elegant forest in June, my older body again feasted on the smells and the colorful, peeling bark. As I drank it all in, my older soul sought stability from these tall companions while murmurs of change, actually promises of change, wafted through the branches continuing the cycle of hard, ripened fruit falling to the ground. No paths or bikes amongst these trees. Only older people wandering about peering, listening, looking, touching, remembering, wondering, and hoping for kindness in the changes to come, but also knowing a little fire might be needed to unleash all the gifts this forest has to offer. Amen.

The Tale of the Twisted Tree

Long ago this twisted tree decided to lay down. It had been a very tall tree but, one day in the forest, its twisted twigs, limbs, branches and trunk held a meeting and decided everyone would be much more comfortable laying down. The question at hand became,”How will we do it? How will we get from way up here to way down there?” As a group they knew they couldn’t just fall down because it would cause a great crash, too much noise, and there would be injuries to the twisted twigs, limbs, branches and trunk. While they were still quite tall they thought very big expansive thoughts considering how they could get from way up there to way down here. Soon, they agreed on an extremely slow, imperceptible set of movements toward the ground.

At the beginning of their discussion they expected the only and biggest decision would be just to lay down. But, no! As they began their extremely slow, imperceptible set of movements toward the ground all kinds of questions came up. Exactly which way should they head? Should they let the neighbors know they’d soon be aground tree instead of an air tree? Should they let the ground animals know their own homes were in danger? Should they ask for help from the birds who seemed to be happy at every height in the forest? Should they take advantage of the darkness and move a lot more quickly when no one could see them? Should they plan to slide down more quickly on rainy days? Some days all the questions overwhelmed the twisted twigs, limbs, branches, and trunk and they felt like giving up.

But, there was no turning back. Once they’d started the extremely slow, imperceptible set of movements toward the ground they just had to keep going. Which, in fact, is exactly what they did.

Slowly....slowly....slowly....they went until they were, as you can see, laying down all together on the soft forest floor.

And that was really the most surprising part of the whole journey: the soft forest floor! From very high in the sky the ground had always looked hard, unwelcoming, and generally inhospitable. But, when they finally got there it was soft, inviting, warm, safe, cushy, delicious, and, frankly, the best place they’d ever been!

And so goes the tale of the twisted tree that decided to lay down.