Saturday, May 29, 2010

Letters to the Departed

Just last month, I wrote a letter to my best friend, Christina, and tucked it into the casket where her body lay. Along with mine were several others, from her nieces and nephew, some with pictures and kisses. It seems I wasn't alone wanting to write her one last missive. Yet it wasn't the first time I had written a letter to someone I loved who had died, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

I first did this with my dad, when he passed in 2006. He was buried the next day, with a letter of mine tucked into his jacket pocket. It was a turning point for me, not simply because it was the first time I'd left a letter this way, but because it was the first time I truly knew how to grieve...how to begin healing from the stunned silence that has typically marked the realization that a loved one has died, all the way to the acceptance to seeps slowly in over time, bringing peace to mingle with the pain of loss.

In years past, I never really knew how to grieve. I'd always thought I was given one day to cry, and then it was time to move on. When he was alive, my father especially demonstrated this. He cried maybe once or twice in front of us when my mother was ill, and dying. After her death, he went stoically right back to work every day, sometimes 16 hours, drowning himself in a job he resented. But the pain of his unresolved grief and regret sapped his strength, bringing him to his last days much sooner than he would have if he had truly dealt with them.

Grieving Christina's death has been much different, and I suppose in a way my father's passing helped me learn to have the kind of healthy grief that has made that possible. It was the first time I had encountered people who encouraged me to face the possibility of his death before the fact, and who let me cry openly. The floodgates had opened, so when I heard of Christina's passing, I was able to feel the pain immediately, even though her death came as a horrific, unexpected shock.

When the impact faded in the weeks after her service, I was left with an amazing realization. Christina had walked with me through the good times and the bad, loving me and being a friend no matter what. She showed me what true friendship was in everything she did. Even in her passing, she left me a gift: the love that I couldn't seem to feel from others, no matter how hard I tried, finally began to "stick." Childhood development experts would probably say that I had never internalized love. Christina, my friend, did even in her death, what (for reasons I can't completely understand) no one else had been able to do: make me feel truly loved. And I have the hopeful expectation that I will someday see her again and be able to tell her everything on my heart, and how much she meant to me, in a way that a letter could never do.

So, just today, I got the news that another friend has passed. Young, beautiful, intelligent, and passionate. Another beautiful soul, and I can hardly believe it. My mind is still reeling from the news, as I'm sure others are. Loved by so many, and missed...

I'm thinking that I'm not done writing letters to the departed. God willing, and if appropriate, mine will be tucked into Lyndsey's casket, to go with the temple that held her spirit. I don't think mine will be the only one. I'm not entirely sure why I write these letters, but I can hope she will hear from heaven, and know just how beautiful she is, and how much she is loved, until we can tell her face-to-face.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

A Saturday afternoon

One of many times I've spent in a favorite coffee shop, collecting my thoughts and distilling down my thoughts into an understanding of what I am to do with my day, and my week. I must admit, I've probably downed more calories than is necessary, what with a chicken salad sandwich, a large Americano and a rice bar. But other than that overindulgence, this sitting and internal journaling is like feathering a nest and putting things in order.

Last night I attended another Open Mic night, and actually read one of my stories: Hannah's Garden, along with some poems from a Creative Writing class. The positive reception was really encouraging, and I started to believe once more that I do have something to offer that no one else has. Yes, there are other songbirds, other writers, other poets, and many are better than I. But there is no other me, no one who can do exactly what I do, no one else who has experienced exactly what I have, or made sense of it in the way I have.

That was a wonderful feeling to have, and knowing it helped me bond with the others who put themselves out there, up on the proverbial stage, to know and be known, at least in part. No competition, just a sense of being a part of something bigger than any one, or all of us combined. No therapy session or self-help guru could ever do that for me.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Beginnings, endings, and all in-between

Sometimes I don't know where I am in my life, when I stop to take a closer look at it. Am I at the beginning of something new, am I at the end of what I may accomplish, or saying good-bye to another season of my life, or am I somewhere in the ambiguous in-between?

This feeling creeps upon me when I'm sorting through things that bring back memories. As a recovering hoarder, the kicking up of memories, like so much dust, is inevitable when doing any sort of cleaning, rearranging, sorting...anything related to the objects in my possession.

I don't think I can adequately relay the sense of awfulness I feel when I come across something I wrote, years before, or collected more than a decade prior, and discover how much it is like something I have more recently written or collected. Have I really changed at all? Have I stagnated?

How do I interpret this? That might be a better question to ask. Someone once told me that recovery is walking up a spiral staircase: the view across is almost identical to what you have been seeing all along. And yet...you look down, and you have come a long, long way from where you were, as long as you have been making the effort.

This journey out of not only hoarding, but out of many other things that have kept me from feeling fulfilled and happy, did not happen in a vacuum. Along the way, I have discovered greater honesty with myself, the need for more grace, and what I truly need in my relationships. Those were things I did not have several years back.

So where am I? I'm not entirely sure. At the beginnings of some things...the endings of others...and where life is concerned, overall, the great in-between of everything.