About Eight Feet Away

Over the past six days I've spent 33 hours in an online conference about grief, death, and dying. I had to do this to retain my certification in Thanatology for my position with Hospice AND I had to do it to regain stamina for the work itself. Providing a compassionate presence for people in all sorts of grief distress from death in all sorts of ways is a daunting task. 

Now I'm on my backyard deck for the first time this season because yard therapy was the order after such a long and intense week. Today my yard encounter began with greasing the bird feeder pole with olive oil to keep the very hungry and pesky squirrels off the feeder. This was met with minimal success as they began to catapult themselves from the deck onto the feeder. Plan 2: Move another pole, pound it into the ground in a different location and move the feeder.

The next part of my yard therapy included crawling around on the ground itself to take out weeds and make space for other things. This ended with sitting down. Sitting down on my deck to listen to the chimes and watch the many birds.

I don't know all their names, like George and Blanche do, but I can surely tell when one bunch has the relocated feeder figured out and another one doesn't.

For the past hour I've been watching some poor little guys hanging out on the old, now empty pole, jumping all around, up and down, looking for the feeder. During this apparently frustrating and fruitless exercise I've silently pointed to the new location about eight feet away to no avail. It's super big and a nice breeze must be spreading the seed smell everywhere, but these poor little guys can't figure it out. A few of their group even sat in the tree that's near the new location and they just can't get the job done.

About eight feet away - that's a pretty short distance for birds, I'd say.

I don't understand their inability to get what they need, but I do understand what I'm witnessing.

I get it because I do it all the time. All the time.

The things I need to keep a compassionate view of the world, the things that ground me in the here and now and keep me from drifting to what used to be, the things that speak life and love and hope to me are always within reach.

However, I'm just like these poor little birds, sometimes, as I sit on one pole to no avail because it used to feed me, it used to have sustenance to keep me going. And I sit, flit about, peck the ground, check out the empty vessels that held flowers last year, and wonder what's going on. I can't manage to look about eight feet away to see it's all right here.

Everything I need to replenish my heart and soul, everything I need to keep my body strong and healthy, everything I need to keep doing the work of my heart is right here.

I need only remember to look.

Resilience was a big topic in the conference I just attended. Resilience is a precious commodity in a world such as this one. It's something we can cultivate. It picks us up and keeps us going. Also, and this is important, being resilient doesn't mean we don't miss and long for everyone who has died.

No, it means we feel all those things AND keep going.

AND. 

The most important word for people in grief (which is everyone).

We are sad AND we keep going.

We are broken AND we keep loving. 

We can't find our sustenance AND we keep looking.

It's only about eight feet away.