when a mother dies (too soon)

Last week’s events at hospice made me think about the impact a mother’s death might have on a five-year old child. It reminded me of my own mother’s death at age 29 when I was three-and-a-half. It brought back memories of last year’s bereavement trauma (see “on grieving” tab at the top of the page) during which I became viscerally aware of never having known my mother. ”Sorrow makes us all children again,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Although I’d always known the fact of her disappearance, I’d never felt its meaning. Being disturbed by grief, my body remembered events that lay back 60 years. Corr & Corr (1996), in a review of children’s experience with parents’ death, write that “with each new loss that occurs, there can be an reawakening of past losses.” 

“Perhaps no other loss affects so many aspects of a child’s life as the death of a parent. If our parents are the cornerstones of family structure, a child whose parent dies loses at least half of his or her sources of emotional support and love, physical and psychosocial assistance, and opportunities for learning. …

“[We learn to] believe that no-one will love us as much, know us as well, or accept us as completely as our parents. Who will teach us to play baseball, cook, or solve math problems? How will we know our family history, and who will remember what we were like when we were a baby? The pervasiveness of the loss, both in its day-to-day changes and the absence that is compounded over the years, is enormous.”

source: Corr, C.A. & Corr, D.M. (1996). (eds.). Handbook of childhood death and bereavement. New York: Springer, p.138-139. image: my mother Hildegard Renner neé Grein (1918-1946).

sunday’s poem, a day late

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), born in Prague, lived in France, Italy, Denmark, travelled widely, served in the Austrian army, died in Switzerland, considered one of the German language’s most important 20th century poets. His work addresses the difficulty of communion with the ineffable.

 

 … You, Beloved, who are all

 the gardens I have ever gazed at,

longing. An open window

in a country house–, and you almost

stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,–

you had just walked down them and vanished.

 

And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors

were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back

my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps the same

bird echoed through both of us

yesterday, separate, in the evening . . . 

 

source:  Mitchell, S. (1982). (ed. & trans.). The selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. New York:  Vintage, p.131. image:  score to Beethoven’s song cycle ”To the distant beloved.”

 

frailty and longing

 

A tumultuous morning at hospice. A patient in her twenties died at 9:32, leaving behind a five-year old daughter, a husband-to-be, her parents. Word of her passing rippled through the floor. You could see people hugging, some with tears, others silently going about caring for the living.

 

We’d had eleven deaths last week and this one touched us especially. Why was that? Because she’d been so young, too young? Old people die, yes, but not someone at her age, with so much life still ahead. Did her death alert us to our own mortality, and that of people dear to us? “This sucks,” someone said, another that it was “all so wrong.” Then we heard that a fellow-worker was away, taking her twenty-year-old to the cancer clinic for a scan of a reoccurred tumour. A call went out for an impromptu healing circle.

 

We gathered in the meditation room, seated in a circle, nurses and volunteers. The bell rang three times, calling our attention inward, there to locate our breath. Each in-breath new life, each out-breath a dying … built-in reminders of the impermanence of everything. We practiced metta (see my post on May 20), expanding awareness from our own heart to others’ who might be hurting. May they be free from fear. May they be at ease. May they be happy. Our music therapist played ”Ashokan Farewell” on her flute and I read this poem: 

God of the Wind,

   Spirit God,

You, God, Larger than Life,

   Greater than the Day,

      Fuller than the Event,

I can be alone with You.

      Alone with the Alone.

 

I feel scattered.

   Yet centered, breathing,

      Allowing your spirit to be in my sensing.

   I dance and settle and move on. Slowly.

      Present to the Moment,

Full of human frailty and longing,

Enclosed in joy and wonder. 

poem source: “Enclosed in wonder” by Donna J. Maebore. Sacred Journey: the journal of fellowship in prayer. June/July 2008, p.25. www.sacredjourney.org; image: www.ssprj.org.

pronounced at 13:50h

The patient I’ve been telling you about (see post boundaries on Monday) died yesterday afternoon. I sat with his widow, daughter, and son-in-law; we prayed and they wept. Meanwhile, the staff phoned the funeral home, the priest came and went, and forms had to be signed. Once everyone was gone, I went into the patient’s room, closed his eyes (which kept opening) and for five minutes sat at the foot of the bed looking at his big hands arranged with care across his abdomen. I noticed that his body, which for so many days had been curled up in pain and discomfort, was lying at ease.

Some time in February of 1360, shortly before his death at age 77, Japanese Zen master Kozan Ichikyo called his pupils together, ordered them to bury him without ceremony, and forbade them to hold services in his memory. He wrote this poem on the morning of his death, laid down his brush and died sitting upright.

Empty-handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going–

Two simple happenings

That got entangled.

source: Hoffmann, Y. (1998). Japanese death poems: written by Zen monks and haiku poets on the verge of death. Boston/Tokyo: Tuttle, p.108.

unavoidable

David Bazier is a psychotherapist and Zen practitioner from the north of England. He writes:

“Everything put together comes apart sooner or later.  … The idea cuts away the whole basis of the rat race. The Zen view is that grief is a consequence of the unrealistic way we habitually perceive the world; a way which … denies reality and stores up grief. … Grief is a spiritual opportunity, a time when the world becomes vividly, unavoidably, and painfully real.

“We are conditioned to think that more is better and loss is disaster, but it is our attachment to many things which encumbers our lives. Loss frees us. The final loss, death, strips us of everything. If we cling to the mind of attachment, death will be the ultimate nightmare.

“A word of caution … The fact that people avoid the subject of loss, grief, and death, and deny many aspects of reality, is not really to be wondered at. Grief is terribly painful. It is only human that [we] defend [ourselves] against it.”

source: Brazier, D. (1995). Zen therapy: transcending the sorrows of the human mind. John Wiley, p.234-6.

tumbling

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Several streams converged yesterday. First, the end of my second week working at the hospice: a steep learning curve, to bed by nine, nourished and exhausted. Second, after baking 40 loaves of sourdough bread, on the ferry by 7 am to get to the farmers market; sold out in 20 minutes, a line-up of disappointed customers: I so wanted to please/feed everyone. Third, amidst Morris Dancers, local Choral Society, across a sea of may-pole frolickers … I suddenly saw her: The One I Still Love. 

 

After 14 months. the ache was as real as ever. As soon as I could find my car, I fled to my friends’ farm, climbed in the hammock: tears at last, heart pounding, then sleep. All the while, a cat sat purring on my chest and a dog waited to fetch. Woke up calmer … noticed with amazement the depths of the heart’s currents.

 

Throw Yourself Like Seed

Miguel de Unamuno, translated by Robert Bly

 

Shake of this sadness, and recover your spirit;

sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate

that brushes your heel as it turns going by,

the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.

 

Now you are only giving food to that final pain

which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,

but to live is to work, and the only things which lasts

is the work;  start then, turn to work.

 

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,

don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,

and do not let the past weigh down your motion.

 

Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself,

for life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;

from your work you will be able on day to gather yourself.

 

source:  Bly, R., Hillman, J. & M. Meade. (Eds.) (1992). The rag and bone shop of the heart: poems for men. HarperCollins, p.234. image: Eros & Psyche www.danheller.com.

in memoriam

An Alberta-based soldier has been killed in southern Afghanistan, the military said Tuesday. Cpl. Michael Starker, a reservist with 15 Field Ambulance, was killed on Tuesday outside Kandahar city. His death brings Canadian casualties to 83 soldiers and one diplomat since the mission began in early 2002.

And what did Michael Starker die for? 

According to Prime Minister Harper’s statement, ”… to bring security and democracy to the people of Afghanistan while also protecting and promoting Canadian values.”

source: CBC News

(when) does grief end?

“Grieving takes as long as it takes” were my words a year ago, written while undergoing the most horrendous loss I’d ever known (see tab “on grieving” above). Well, maybe not the most horrendous loss, but the most acute period of awareness I’d ever witnessed. But how long it would last and where it would take me I didn’t have a clue at the time (and still don’t to this day).

A life comprises losses, small one, large ones; some go by without fuss, others rattle our very foundations. I remember being catapulted into a state of wide awakedness. It took the experience of abandonment and rejection to cause my body to ache, my heart to spasm, and my head to spin. “Pay attention! This is your Big Lesson,” said a voice from deep within.

Against this backdrop, and almost a year later, I find that parts of me continue to resist learning. They resents having to still grieve, to ache, to long for. They’d rather replay old films of how things used to be and fantasizes about a magic return to former happiness. Then, last night, as I began to pay attention to my body, I noticed that my right side felt as if paralyzed, crippled, shrunken. Exploring further, I came upon this resistance to healing. Such a paradox, not wanting to heal! To my surprise, I welcomed this discovery. And by mere noting my heart opened to not-knowing and whatever lessons I’m still to learn.

As I write the following morning, everything seem less weighty; I feel refreshed, encouraged. Not once did I ask “why am I still feeling this way” or “what shall I do about it.” Those would have been the automatic response in the past. Now I delight in mere noticing.

Stephen Levine expresses his discomfort with the term spiritual healing, because to him– 

“[the spirit] is un-injured, the un-injurable, the boudarilessness of being, the deathless.  … Healing is not forcing the sun to shine but letting go of the personal separatism, the self-images, the resistance to change, the fear and anger, the confusion that form the opaque armoring around the heart … [This process] opens the way to reveal the ever-healed within.”

source: Levine, S. (1987). Healing onto life and death. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, p.6.

a letter to beijing

Dear CJ, I am saddened to hear that your heart is heavy with grief and guilt. May you find joy in our exchange of notes, as I do. peter (Da Xin 大心)

Whoever finds love beneath hurt and grief
disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new disguises
What is the soul
What is the soul I cannot stop asking
if I could taste one sip of an answer
I could break out of this prison for drunks
I didn’t come here of my own accord
and I can’t leave that way
whoever brought me here
will have to take me home

–Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207-1273), مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی, Persian poet, jurist, and theologian.

old gives way to new

This post refers directly to the two that follow. It’s a reminder of the mysterious necessity for loss and grief. Esther de Vaal is a married Anglican lay woman who conducts retreats in the Benedictine and Celtic traditions. Here she writes:

“St. Anselm opens one of his prayers with the disarmingly simple words, “O God, who has formed and reformed me ….” As I pray them I realize that this is one of God’s mercies: that he allows me to remain open, vulnerable, sensitive to the ways in which he is ready to shape and mould me; that I am indeed clay in the hands of the potter; and that continually throughout my life the old gives way to the new–if I am willing to let it happen, if I am ready to play my part.”

source: Esther de Vaal. (1997). Living with contradiction: an introduction to Benedictine spirituality. Harrisburg, PA: Moorehouse Publ., p.16.

surprise

Occasionally, very rarely, we’re able to witness a shift within: a change of attitude, an alteration in the way we view our little world, some adjustment in the body. Such moments are fleeting and, unless we’re wide awake, they go unnoticed to the conscious mind.  

 

For some time now I’ve been troubled by the persistence of grief following a personal loss a full year ago. Why won’t it go away, I’ve wondered, Why am I still in such pain? (This not withstanding my own prediction–in the essays filed under ”on grieving” at the top of this page–that grieving takes as long as it takes.) Surely, a year is enough, my mind complains. As it turns out, more work’s to be done, more learning to come my way.

 

The reason I mention all this is that while shopping for groceries yesterday, I was drawn to the colours of the flower shop. In particular, I noticed the roses, orange-and-red tinged roses, much like the ones I used to give to my beloved. Immediately I noticed a shift in mood towards sadness and loss … except that this time I grabbed the reins before slipping into self-pity. Instead, I reached for the finest-looking bunch … and bought it for myself. This was the first time I’ve ever bought roses for myself. And still I think of her, with affection–grief and love coexisting.

 

“To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.” –José Ortega y Gasset.

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why be humbled

“It seems that we are humbled before the great events in life. Events over which we have no power, no influence. Events that do not play fair. To be humbled like this is not meant to be punishment, but rather Death grooming us to awaken.”

source: Stephanie Erickson. (1993). Companion through the darkness: inner dialogue on grief. New York: Harper Perennial, p.69. image: members.fortunecity.com

ordering my coffin

Is there someone you don’t want to forgive? I certainly hold some mighty deep-seated grudges and dislikes of others. As I “see” it, they’ve hurt me in the past: something they did or omitted to do. Something for which they ought to come clean and apologize. And as long as they don’t do either of those, I can’t –won’t—forgive them. 

Ezra Bayda writes, “Forgiveness is often tainted with the idea that there should be some form of magnanimous acceptance of others even though they did us wrong. This understanding of forgiveness is not what a forgiveness practice is about. Forgiveness is about practicing with and healing resentment, the resentment that blocks our desire to live from our True Nature. Forgiveness is about loosening our hold on the one thing we most want to hold on to—the suffering of resentment.” 

A year ago on this day my One Love left to go her own way. I still love you, let’s be friends—were her last words before she split into the void. My heart cracked, plunged into an abyss of disbelief and pain. (More on this by clicking the tab “on grieving” at the top of the page.)  On the whole, I have recovered from the experience. It’s been transformational and freeing. It has taught me about boundaries, projections, and clinging. It showed me that I am capable of deep loving and that this love resides in me, is me. For much of the time I’m grateful for having experienced such the extremes of passion. But … but … deep down I hold resentment. Words are once more inadequate to describe something as irrational as resentment, but if pressed I’d mutter She misled me, abandoned me; I was stupid not to see it coming, should have gotten over it by now, etc.

These are all reactions to suffering, labels put on a deep hurt. That’s were my healing practice begins:  recognizing my emotional reaction, experiencing my own pain, and–surprise—noting the pain in the one I resent. This is not easy; 12 months after our parting I still hesitate to call anger and bitterness by their name. “People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard. If God said in plain language, ‘I’m giving you a choice, forgive or die,’ a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin,” says young Lily (in The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd, 2002, p.277). 

“The first stage in forgiveness practice,” writes Bayda, “is simply acknowledging how unwilling we are to forgive the other. We let ourselves experience the degree to which we prefer to hold on to our resentment … even when we how it closes us to living a genuine life.” 

source: Ezra Bayda. (2003). At home in muddy waters: a guide to finding peace within everyday chaos. Shambala, p. 92-93. image: www.statestreetgalleryfinearts.com

getting to know fear

This is a follow-up to the “relinquish!” post of two days ago. 

So what if I am ready to relinquish, to let go, to cease clinging. Where will it take me; where will it leave me? My fear—and fear is the underlying feeling—is that I’ll be in freefall, without anything solid to hold on to. I’ll be vulnerable (again): naked.

Following the practice of Buddhism, I sink into the feeling I’m calling fear. Consciously entering the bodily sensations, the physical experience of it. The immediate reaction is “no, don’t do that to me!” It’s the voice of the ego, the self that’s been hurt, that is hurting still. Zen teacher Ezra Bayda suggests that this is the time to ask, “What is this?” The what, he writes, comprises two aspects: a physical sensation and a thought pattern. He cautions to take tiny steps in approaching the core of the fear. So just writing all this, acknowledging my Angst, is that crucial first step. I am afraid that letting go of clinging will be painful—just as painful and devastating as the original loss.

As I sit with all this, paying attention to this breath, and the next, I become aware of a tighness, a holding in my shoulder and neck area. It’s as if I’m wearing yoke, the kind put on a pair of oxen* to pull ancient carts. I sit with that. Shifting from thinking directly into bodily awareness. Not trying to figure out what the yoke’s about, what it’s symbolism might be, how it got there, and how I might take it off. Just sit and be aware. And again ask, “What is it?” A brace, an armour, a weight—as if made of steel or carved from aged oak. Beneath that, my chest and heart area — soft and accessible, vulnerable yet unafraid.

Ezra Bayda: “Just the willingness to stay with the fear, to be curious about the fear, is a big step from pushing it away or trying to overcome it. Cultivating the willingness to be with fear is a step towards learning the willingness to be with our life as it is” [my emphasis]. It’s this non-rushing towards analysis and solution-finding (fixing) that continues to surprise me about this meditative approach. Its gentleness is, in fact, filled with strength; and light.

* The harness is called a yoke and a pair of oxen a ‘yoke of oxen.’  Ezra Bayda. (2002). Being Zen: bringing meditation to life. Boston: Shambala, p.70.

relinquish!

Almost a year’s gone by since I lost my first* love (for more, see the top-of-page tab on grieving). More recently I’ve been struggling with getting her out of my system. It’s as if she’s still part of me, embedded in every fibre of my physical and emotional self. Places, scents, and sensations continue to remind me of her. Each time I wince with the memory of loss. If only I could “let go,” I’d be free again.

Letting go of what, exactly? Haven’t I tried to let go of the memory of her, of the love given and taken away, of the extraordinary feelings of ecstasy our union had presented us with? Yes, but not quite. What I’m called to let go of, I’m beginning to realize, is clinging itself: to what used to be and to what I’d wished would last forever.

“Letting go is the essence of the spiritual life, the heart of spiritual practice,” write Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman, “beginning to let go brings an immediate and profound revelation. Only when we are no longer full of opinions and expectations are we truly receptive. Only when we are no longer afraid of loss do we begin to open in a whole-hearted way to the world around us. … In the discovery of aloneness is the discovery of what it means to be truly together with others. In travelling this path of inner transformation, we are encouraged to let go of everything, to relinquish every form of clinging [my emphasis]. We are encouraged to let go of preoccupations with the past, investment of the future, and clinging in the present. We are encouraged to renounce our images, expectations, fears, and guilt.”

No kidding! Relinquish every form of clinging. Renounce expectations and fears. Don’t hold on to guilt. What was, was—and what is, changes before your eyes. Freedom comes from being fully present with what is right before our eyes, not what was of what we’d hoped it would become.

“Do not hesitate to love and love deeply,” writes Henri Nouwen. “You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. [no kidding!] When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful. It is like a plough that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant. Every time you experience the pain of rejection, absence, or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide not to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer …”

* borrowed from the Leonard Cohen song line “You’re my first love / and my last / there’s no love after you.” 

Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman are meditation teachers associated with Spirit Rock. The quote is from Soul food: stories to nourish the spirit and the heart, 1996, Harper, p.309. 

Henri J.M. Nouwen was a Dutch-born catholic priest who taught at Yale and Harvard Divinity Schools and spent the last ten years living amid people with developmental disabilities at Toronto’s L’Arche. Quote from The inner voice of Love, 1996, Doubleday, p.49.