I'm Grateful for the Love

Grateful for the Gifts November 29 2009


I just reread the poem about friends –

People who walk with us for

“A reason, a season, or a lifetime.”

I reflect, at this Thanksgiving season,

On the gifts you gave me

While we walked along together,

Shoulders touching, arms encircling,

Love between us flowing freely.

I will be forever grateful that you taught me

How to be a friend --

To share openly our feelings,

To serve lovingly each other’s needs and thoughts,

To treat myself with kindness as you treated me.

You taught me well, and now I must walk on alone,

Sharing what I learned with others.

You were my angel.

Though the pain of losing you wells up in tears and memories,

I’m also blessed by knowing friendship such as this.



Reflections:

I don’t know why this image is arising now. I’m picturing our California commitment ceremony. We had already vowed our lifelong commitment to love, support, and learn with each other. We deeply wanted to convey to our family, friends, and neighbors that we had made this pledge to each other – that we weren’t just “companions,” “roommates,” or “buddies.” We were spouses, even though we were not legally allowed to assume this title. So we decided to stage what was, for all intents and purposes, a wedding. Our beautiful house in Berkeley, newly completed, would serve as the site. Our friend Harriett, who had gotten an online ordination that would allow her to perform weddings, would officiate.

We set up a memorable party with a caterer, and sent out over a hundred invitations, to everyone we each knew. Just about everyone came! Our families, from the corners of the United States, were represented. Our friends, from New York, St. Louis, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Florida, Colorado, and California, also converged on our house in Berkeley for our joyous celebration. The neighbors, of all ages, from our whole block attended, and our new California friends.

We wrote and rehearsed our vows, and designed and commissioned our wedding rings. Our nephew and niece, Wayne and Christy, gave us the lasting wedding present of a professionally produced DVD on which they had recorded the occasion, with greetings from everyone who attended. The garden had just been planted a week before the ceremony, minuscule plants surrounded by wide swaths of empty ground which they would grow to fill within the next several years. It represented the growth that would mark our relationship over the same years. Wine flowed and food delighted – a real wedding feast. The Irish musicians from the corner pub, joined by Liessa playing her fiddle, played “Havana-Gila” with abandon, as we danced in a joyful wedding circle -- then they regaled us with wonderful Irish tunes. Liessa’s new husband, Russ, whom we grew to love over the years as a wonderful family member, amazed us by getting to know by the afternoon’s end every single person who was there.

We always felt that our commitment ceremony had been our official wedding, and that it had succeeded in communicating to all who needed to know “who we were for each other,” as you so gracefully expressed it.

Our vows said it all: “I love you wholly and without reservation, till my heart stops beating and my eyes cease to see.”

The private pathos of the ceremony, and its significance were heightened dramatically by the fact that we had just learned, two weeks before, that your breast cancer had come back, metastatically. Your life expectancy at that moment, was suddenly reduced to less than two years. We didn’t say anything to anyone, and went on with the ceremony as planned, allowing its joy and resonance to ring out fully for all. In fact, you lived for more than six more years, most of it time that you could enjoy, and that we could both appreciate deeply, although the cancer was symptomatic, causing some pain and sapping your energy. The “other shoe” was always there waiting to drop, and yet we lived each day, each moment, together, as fully as possible, growing in love and learning to live more authentically and mindfully.

We truly became “Roellen,” the name that you coined for us. Together, we shared a healing practice, and witnessed to the power of love to shape a couple without regard to gender. We became a positive example for couples old and new. And we provided inspiration to those who otherwise might think that they were too old to achieve their dreams. People stopped by the house constantly. It was a “second home” to many, who felt nourished and supported there. The spirit of that house radiated love and comforting acceptance. It was a blessing to find ourselves the nucleus of that growing, loving community.

People still tell me, long after we moved away , that they went by the house, , to see it again – and that the energy they remembered has changed. It’s no longer, for them, that magical place where they had felt happy being friends and enjoying fellowship. That would also, of course, be true for me if I were to rvisit it now. Now it’s just another house on an ordinary street -- unknowing, anonymous. The enchantment lives on only in our shared memories. And the past, like the future, does not really exist – only the present is real.

Ellen, Harriett, Rosemary

"La Guillonnee," tune and dance from French Missouri

Commitment Ceremony, August 31, 2002, Prince St. House, Berkeley CA

"A Reason A Season or A Lifetime" ( author unknown).

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually. They may seem like a Godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a reason: you need them to be with you.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die, Sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! -- but only for a season. As spring turns to summer and summer to fall, the season eventually ends.

LIFETIME relationships teach you a lifetime of lessons: those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lessons, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life.

It is said that love is blind, but friendship is clairvoyant.

Linked

Communities November 28 2009


With how many people do we each connect?

With what creations and what places?

Ideas? Values? Eras? Spirits?

I get a phone call from a friend

With whom I’ve had no contact over several months,

And yet we’re instantly in tune,

As though no time at all had passed, or

We’d spent the intervening time linked up as one.

We were each alone, yet fully present to each other.

I carry on connections with those who were close to my beloved,

As if I’d stepped into her shoes and walked along in them

Uninterrupted ,a single line of footprints in the sand for each,

And mine go forward from where hers had stopped.

I hear about my family’s Thanksgiving day,

Spent far away from where I am,

I sense the energy of babies bringing new souls to the group,

As spirits of those who’ve died or who are dying hover lovingly about the edges.

Over time, the children grow up, become old, and move along to other realms,

And yet the family group goes on, with new souls cycling in as old ones travel on.

We seem linked to many souls, to many groups – perhaps forever.

We know with them, we share our spirit sight,

Our hearts remain in synch, regardless of the distance or the years.





Reflection:

Over this holiday weekend, I’ve talked on the phone with quite a few relatives and old friends – both yours and mine, my Love. I’ve also spent time present with my children and grandchildren and with friends, neighbors, and colleagues. The multitude of close links that I have felt has impressed me deeply. Although I’m alone, I’m also not at all alone. I’m part of a chorus of souls, resonating with each other as the frog and insect choruses of midsummer proclaim with their deafening racket the endless network of creature connections.

It doesn’t appear to matter, actually, how far away we live from one another, or how seldom we see each other. We remain linked. Those connections remain solid, marching along in step with each other. We may see each other just once a year, at Thanksgiving. This is true of Mike, with whom we’d also shared previous Thanksgivings, but who doesn’t appear in our lives on the other 364 days of the year. He comes to be with us, is fully present, shares dinner and convivial spirit, then essentially disappears. He belongs here at Thanksgiving. He appears. We’d miss him if he didn’t. We perceive no gap in our relation to him. Our time together is continuously discontinuous.

There has also been a lively conference of connections in my memory over this holiday. The celebration evokes moments that have lain dormant but very much alive – they unfurl in glorious detail, feeling, and color, adding their vibrations to the physical scene.

Memories, resonances, and the present moment are as one complex panorama, filled out in muted grays and browns, pastels, and brilliant hues that blend beautifully together; melancholy, innocence, and gaiety harmonize in one vibrant whole.

Traditions and Expectations

Thanksgiving and Shopping November 26 2009


“Are you going shopping tomorrow?” asked Russ, my son-in-law, as I prepared to leave their house today after a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.

Truthfully, I hadn’t even contemplated the idea, although for years, when I was still with Ron, the day after Thanksgiving was our family shopping day. We would have traveled for the annual extended family feast, driving from St. Louis north through Chicago to Ron’s family’s home in Gary, Indiana. We usually left our house either early on Thanksgiving morning, or on Wednesday, the preceding day, along with everyone else making the annual pilgrimage toward home for Thanksgiving. Leaving on Wednesday involved some degree of deception, since the college where we taught always scheduled classes on the day and evening before Thanksgiving, even though 90% of the students would be absent. We’d give alternative assignments so that we didn’t have to be in class just to take attendance with two or three die-hards. There was no point holding class with virtually no one there.

Generally, especially if we drove up on Wednesday, by the time we got to the Chicago area, around rush hour, it would be snowing, traffic would be snarled, moving at most a couple of miles an hour, and we’d arrive in Gary much later than we had anticipated, cold and exhausted. The family meal at Grandma Olga’s and Grandpa Walter’s house – later at Ron’s sister Carol’s house -- was festive and delicious. Everyone brought food, so the fare was bountiful and varied.

Going shopping on the day after Thanksgiving was just as predictable as eating till we were stuffed, then taking a walk to try to revive ourselves on Thanksgiving Day itself.

For many years on the day after Thanksgiving, we took the South Shore Railroad from Gary to the Loop, stopping first at the Museum of Science and Industry, then spending the afternoon shopping. For me, it meant a delightful couple of free hours wandering through the wonderful bookstore Kroch’s and Brentano’s, on Michigan Avenue. We’d establish a meeting time, usually around 5, at the South Shore station, to share the return trip to Gary, and would arrive laden with heavy, lumpy shopping bags, tired and happy to be going back for turkey sandwiches with all the fixings, remaining from the day before.

The South Shore had seen better days. The cars had been splendid in the 1930s. By the 80s, they were shabby and threadbare. They rattled loudly, and the wind chill factor from ill-fitting windows was only overcome by maintaining the interior thermostat somewhere above 80 degrees. So we were chilled and roasted at the same time. I remember one time, the doors didn’t work right, and wouldn’t open while the train was stopped at the Museum station. They only, finally, opened once the train started up again. Ron leapt from the moving train onto the platform, then Liessa. Panicked, I felt compelled to join them, though the train was probably going 15 miles an hour and was accelerating rapidly by the time my turn came. I had no idea how I would ever find them again in Chicago if I didn’t jump. I was terrified. Fortunately, I was still relatively young at that point, and my joints and muscles had a bit of “give” still. We all survived the ordeal with no serious, lasting injuries.

Life situations change, of course, and as a result, so do traditions. Ron’s parents moved from the Glen Park section of Gary, where they’d lived since they’d been married, to Schererville, a suburb. His brother moved to Michigan City, away from the Chicago area. Michigan City had just developed a very large Factory Outlet Mall, and since we were staying there now, with Ron’s brother, on our annual Thanksgiving visits, we all started spending the day after Thanksgiving at the Outlet Mall, completing much of our holiday shopping on that one day. It was still an annual ritual -- compulsory, it seemed – what else would we do on that otherwise blank day?

This type of shopping is a strange mutation of the basic life activity of hunter-gatherer societies. Forays out into the wilderness might provide excellent materials for food and clothing – or not. One had favorite places to go, that were more likely to provide the sought after bounty. It was a social ritual in which people engaged within their clan or tribal groups. For a day each year, we relived prehistoric human activities, hunting with our wallets instead of bows and arrows.

Every year for 33 years, as long as our nuclear family remained intact, Ron, Liessa, and I made this annual trip. Although the last Thanksgiving we spent in Indiana is now more than 12 years ago, it still seems strange not to make an annual pilgrimage for the Thanksgiving feast, and also not to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. I’m glad that Liessa and Russ are now hosting Thanksgiving dinners, and that I live nearby and am able to join them, now that I’m alone.

Thanksgiving traditions tend to last a very long time. Inertia and a love for ritual keeps us following the same ones, spending the holiday with the same “Thanksgiving family” members until life changes make continuing impossible. Ellen, when you and I got together, we tried very hard to become the nucleus for such a Thanksgiving family. You had been trying to accomplish this for years before we met. We never got a stable group of friends and family who would come year after year – each year we had to start over, and invite new people. Fortunately, there are always people whose lives have changed, and who are without a place where they’re automatically expected, so we always had a good group. But it was disappointing not to succeed in establishing a Thanksgiving ritual for ourselves. I guess some people are just destined to be hosts, and others guests. After all, one couldn’t have these large annual gatherings without a good number of guests to attend them!



Feeling Detached November 26 2009

I feel nomadic, now that I’m alone and old –

Unattached, unanchored among humans.

My life and actions float each day

From place to place.

I seek connections, would welcome some routine,

Some place where I’m needed and expected,

Where other people nod to greet me --

Chatting easily, smiling their delight.

Some place where if I didn’t show up as expected,

They’d miss me, try to find me, make sure I was all right.

Then I might still feel I belonged somewhere.

Considering Courage

Courage November 25 2009


I think of all the times I’ve pulled back from the edge,

Afraid to suffer, afraid to lack, afraid to die –

All the times I’ve wakened in the night in terror,

Worrying over ills that might await me in the dark.

That’s my native way to be within this earthly realm --

A small, trembling mollusk wanting only safety in its shell.

No bravado here! No tempting fate or risking life or limb.

I’ve never even managed to jump off the pool’s edge into

Water deeper than my head – a fear so primal that it’s paralyzing.



Yet when tuned in to spirit, aware of love around me,

Feeling universal awe and knowing that I am of God,

My mollusk mind melts away – lets go –

Opens into trust that the way I see before me is the Truth,

That every move I make is cushioned and supported –

That my good is all around me, awaiting my acceptance eagerly.

As life’s challenge spreads before me, I can jump in easily,

And flow in bliss wherever it may lead.

I’m a buoyant spirit, and the water has no bottom and no sides.

I choose to study staying in the spirit mind.



Reflections:

Courage comes up all the time. But it doesn’t mean a lack of fear. It means opening to Trust.

I think of all the times you were courageous, my Love. When you decided to be a doctor, you trusted that it would happen -- that if you followed your heart’s desire, you could do it, despite a lack of funds for medical school, despite your disability, despite being Jewish and a woman, at a time when strict quotas often kept both from attending medical school. You were accepted to Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia, although they extracted a pledge from you that because of your paralyzed hand you would never actually practice medicine. You performed brilliantly during your first year.

This was in the early 1950s, during the McCarthy Era. You were asked to resign at the end of that year because they had discovered you were gay. At the time, there were no rules of confidentiality for psychotherapists. You had had an affair with a fellow student, who had then told the school’s psychologist. The psychologist passed the information along to the Dean, who called you into her office. “How many others were involved in this?” she asked, as she told you that you were dismissed. For the rest of your life, you were proud of having stood up for ethics and confidentiality and replied, not “I don’t know,” but “I can’t tell you that.”

You were courageous again in continuing to follow your calling, enrolling in medical school, in French, at the Universite de Lausanne in Switzerland. You had excelled in high school French, and you relied on that to allow you to continue your studies. At that time, it was fairly common for Americans aspiring to become physicians but not accepted at American medical schools to apply instead to Lausanne. Generally, though, you didn’t hang out with the other Americans, and chose instead to participate in study groups with native French speakers. You were well regarded there. Your teachers respected your need to devise original methods for physical diagnosis, surgery, and delivering babies, using just one hand. They even helped you to perfect the methods you invented. You were justifiably proud of your success with all of these basic medical tasks.

At King’s County Hospital, back in Brooklyn, where you completed your internship, you delivered many babies, and were delighted at the number of Hispanic girls in Brooklyn who had been named “Elena” after the young one-handed doctor who had delivered them and whose courage had inspired the parents.

Most of all, I am awed when I think of your courage while we were together. A lifelong New Yorker, you willingly moved to Berkeley with me, so that we would have the room to practice together, sharing patients. When your cancer recurrence was diagnosed, you stepped outside of the medical paradigm in which you’d been steeped all your life, allowing me, with the help of mentors, to treat you using homeopathic protocols that held out the hope of a longer, more successful restraint on the cancer’s progress. When Avery was born, and then Julian, you, who had never had children, stepped wholeheartedly into the unfamiliar role of grandparent, and starred in your grandchildren’s lives as “Nanny El.” You pioneered with me the role of “spouse,” as, without the benefit of being able to marry, we figured out ways to join our finances, our households, and our selves as one, in a deeply committed relationship that many found inspiring. When Massachusetts laws changed to allow marriages for out of state same sex couples, you arranged for oxygen machines and medical support so we could, finally, legally marry, just weeks before your death. And as you neared the end of your life, you committed yourself to learning to transcend fear, anger, loss, and pain through Buddhist awareness and meditation. You approached death through increasing enlightenment, providing a beautiful example of a soul purifying day by day, like gold repeatedly refined, through the crucible of physical pain and emotional forgiveness.

Courage – trust that what seems right will work beautifully, leading us to follow the vision that fills our heart. It requires attending to our inner awareness, ignoring false fears and seductive illusions that are only physical and material. What a gift to have known and loved someone who lived this courageously! This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for that wonderful, transforming experience.

Haunting Memories

Empty Chair November 24 2009


Tonight, your favorite restaurant –

“Five, please, with these two children.”

We came here often. You loved the sushi.

We always sat so Avery could perch between us,

Happy as a prince enthroned.

Julian, a baby, would slide down off his chair,

Toddle over underneath the table,

and play peek-a-boo, flirting with your eyes.

It always feels strange being here without you.

This was our family dining place.

The tables where we sit still have your chair,

The sixth place at table.



When we came tonight,

The sweet young hostess asked us,

“Where’s the nice lady who always came here with you?”

We looked at each other, and had to say, “She died.”

But I wondered if she didn’t feel you with us, after all this time.

Your spirit presence finds its brightest pitch

In all the places where you always were –

Your Eames chair, your place at meals,

The car’s passenger seat, Your side of the bed.

These will always be your places,

As long as they and we are here and we think of you with love.





Reflection:

Thanksgiving will be the day after tomorrow. Perhaps more than any other holiday, this day evokes family, clan, and having a place in society to call one’s own. The experience at the buffet tonight made me realize how tightly you and I together bonded with our shared family here – our roles defined and cemented by the children and their delight in “Grandma Ro” and “Nanny El” -- “the grandmas.” I see once in a while one of the photos of you with the children. You and they, alike, look supremely happy. You always told me how much you loved the little children whose paths had crossed yours – your young niece, Karen when you were in your late teens; the children who grew up next to your and Jeannine’s house in Connecticut; the children of your best friend Sandy, including your pride and joy, your godson Noah, whom I was so glad to have met in Hawaii when we were there together; little Ames who was barely two when you and I met, who lived in the loft next to yours, and who adored the line drawings of ducks and puppies that you created for him on command, with great glee. But these were other people’s children, with whom you grabbed a few moments of child-time now and then.

You deeply regretted, in older years, that you had not had the opportunity to have children. Finally, in your last years, Avery and Julian gave you the great joy of having your own grandchildren -- of being a real grandmother. You enriched their lives with your love, as they brightened your life with theirs. You are still loved and cherished here in your family, by all of us.

Nanny El with Avery, Age 1, in family room in Berkeley

Helping Hands

Holiday Stress November 22 2009


Reflection:

Holiday celebrations create our iconic memories – the moments that stay with us forever. And yet, these same celebrations can cause so much stress. They can be unbearable. I heard tonight from a good friend who is moving several states away. She had just spent two days packing her whole household single handedly into a rental truck, was planning to drive the truck (towing her car) straight through for 14 hours through heavy rains predicted for tomorrow, and had agreed with her fiancé to prepare and serve a Thanksgiving dinner just two days after pulling up to the front door of the new, empty house they’ve just purchased. She also felt sick, and sounded as if she was getting a bad cold.

Wait a minute! Is that even possible? Needless to say, she was feeling desperately stressed by the whole upcoming scenario, wanting everything to go perfectly so that she would disappoint no one. But what about her?

One lesson that women learn in our society – those of us who strive to be “good,” and to make everyone happy – is that attempting the superhuman is normal behavior, and that our needs shouldn’t count. We don’t deserve kindness, sympathy, or the benefits of rest. We spend the night up with a sick child, then go to our outside job all day, then spend the next night tending to the child – until we become ill ourselves. We feel we’re doing the right thing. We spend 20 hours a week driving our older child to games and other activities, and being present for the child, in addition to cooking, cleaning, washing, and working a full-time job, or even two of them. We declare entertainment events, and spend days cooking, cleaning, arranging, preparing, then, too exhausted to enjoy the occasion, we end up getting a bad cold, or worse. I’ve certainly done these things. I wonder now how I managed. I was constantly sick with something. Now I see why.

You, my Bubbele, were the one who taught me to have compassion for myself, to treat myself well – to believe that I deserved kind and loving treatment, the same as anyone else. What a new concept that was for me! Every time you were kind to me, I wept, real tears.

It was a lesson you had learned for yourself from experience and from studying Buddhism. You taught me that I deserved help, as did you, as does everyone. You taught me that I didn’t have to prove anything to be loved and lovable, that love could just be, unconditionally.

You had injured your functional shoulder – torn your rotator cuff -- one Thanksgiving, in attempting, with one hand and by yourself, to remove a hot 25 pound turkey from the oven. You were cooking for a bunch of people, preparing a whole meal by yourself. Your shoulder never recovered; indeed, it continued to deteriorate over several years, adding incrementally and painfully to your existing disability. When your rotator cuff had totally disappeared, you one day also tore your deltoid muscle, irreparably, so that you could no longer raise your one functional hand above your waist. You now had two paralyzed shoulders. That new level of disability destroyed the possibility that you could consider yourself an able person. It increased dramatically your level of dependence on the help of others. It, finally, made life seem for you not worth continuing to live. But in the meantime, it led you to realize that we need to ask for and receive help in life – that we can’t do everything perfectly by ourselves without sustaining serious injury and illness.

I appreciate your passing that lesson on to me. In your loving admonitions, you taught me that admitting my need for help with various things is important to maintaining good health and aging well.

As I’ve continued living alone, without you, I’ve tried to take that lesson to heart. I’ve continued to find assistance with a variety of physical tasks that I know worsen my back and joint pain when I attempt to brave them on my own; I’ve also continued to receive help with the challenge of running a household and maintaining a large separate house on my own as I age, while also working professionally. At some point, I assume I’ll move to a much smaller place, one where the outside tasks and the basic maintenance are fulfilled as part of the package. That will reduce my need for individual assistance.

I found it hard to answer my daughter convincingly the other day, when she asked me “Why do you need any help with anything?” I could have asked my mother that same question when I was in my 30s, my daughter’s age. I understand that an able-bodied young woman can’t conceive of the increased weakness of an aging body. I certainly didn’t. I was just as judgmental in observing my mother’s advancing age as I was with myself all my life – Why can’t we do everything always by ourselves?

So as we start preparing once again for holidays, I will try to treat myself with love and compassion, and acknowledge my need for assistance with many of the tasks through which we will create a festive experience. I don’t need to do everything by myself. It’s OK to admit that I have some weaknesses, that I can only do what I can do. Even if I’m no longer a strong 35 year old, my love, my contributions, my efforts still matter. Pride is not worth injuring myself over.



Community November 22 2009

We are not designed to be alone.

Our human history, etched on walls of prehistoric caves,

Or painted in bright detail by artists such as Breughel,

Shows us working with a clan or village

To sustain ourselves – to feed, to clothe, to nurture.

Our whole life fits well within communities –

From naked infant to wrinkled sage,

Each giving and receiving in their turn.

To be whole and healthy -- to survive,

We need the love, the helping hand, the heartsong

Of each neighbor.

Together we are strong and whole and happy.

Alone, we perish – cold and hungry.

Let us, then, sing our love together

As we prosper –

Hearts and minds and hands united.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Holidays November 21 2009


Thanksgiving holiday festivities

Evoke so many memories, both sad and happy.

I recollect the drive to Grandma’s house

In childhood – all 7 of us piled in the car,

Belting out “Over the River and Through the Woods”

Over and over, in a fever-pitch of glee.

I remember how strange it was in France

That Thanksgiving was a non-event.

How was it possible to live like that?

Next came decades of long drives to northern Indiana,

To share dinner, and then weekend shopping

With my husband’s family –

Fellowship and boredom, kielbasa and perogi,

Snow-bound, icy roads and frostbitten faces.

Then the wonder years with Ellen –

“Pearl Mesta of 13th Street” – she who loved to host a party,

Who struggled, lifelong, to collect, absent an extended family,

A steady group of guests for turkey dinner every year.

We say the purpose of Thanksgiving is

To say our thanks for the many gifts we have –

But I think that it’s a test of whether we belong somewhere,

Can feel we have a family, a community, a place of welcome.

Gratitude, to count, must come from plural voices,

And loneliness is horrifying – not allowed, for this one day.



Reflection:

Traditions are our bulwark against loneliness, sorrow, and unhappiness. They mark the year’s cycle of time, creating recognizable steps from one day, one month to the next. When a year is completed, we start again, treading the same territory over and over but at a slightly different angle each time. In this way, life is a labyrinth, a measured passage in circles and spirals, a meditation on the meaning of love and learning.

We think of our life as a line of years, from 1 to 100. Outside the numeric pattern, though, it’s actually circular. We revisit, repeatedly, the same places, the same footfalls, the same questions – each time with a different soul, mind, spirit, awareness, life.

With no traditions, our lives would have no mileposts, no touchstones. We’d evolve in an arid, endless desert, chasing mirages of love and comfort.

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful to have a family circle into which to fall. And I already miss terribly the family circle you and I once created, together, with our own traditions -- our own rituals of what to serve, how to serve it, and how to structure this festive day. Our holiday dishes, good place settings, wine glasses, and special serving dishes will remain stacked in the pantry. Our fridge will remain empty. Our house, where friendly voices used to chatter contentedly around a crackling fire, then a laden table, will remain silent, unanimated. I’ll be with my family, but a large part of my heart will be missing you and our life together! Remembrance will swell my spirit, though loneliness be banished.

Thoughts on Love and Loneliness

Search November 18 2009


What drives us always to seek out a match,

As if we were designed in pairs?

Some people, like the elements,

Stand proudly on their own.

Others appear driven

To link with what is same, yet other,

Like atoms looking for completion.

When the right vibrations come along, we’re drawn

Into their field – Finally complete.

You and I were bonded in this way.

Now, I seek again – again a solitary star,

Wandering to find its galaxy.



Reflection

It’s such a paradox of life that many of us spend most of our lives in a state of loneliness. I look around and see how often this is true, even for people who have experienced loving partnership. Essentially, despite our different group affiliations, we all are alone; even the presence of a dedicated life companion is transitory.

Our drive to partner is so strong that much of the time, we are willing to settle for someone who sort of fits, even if there are major gaps. Probably the biological imperative behind this drive is simply the species’ need to reproduce. And yet, there is enough evidence of after-death communications to make it seem likely, or at least plausible, that we also seek matches in a spiritual dimension, partners who can be our companions and our teachers on the path to enlightenment.

The ideal of monogamous marriage most likely stems from the youthful imperative to create a family. As an older person, I sense that there are probably a variety of ways in which people can affiliate lovingly and feel completed. However, physical reality successfully obscures spiritual knowledge. So it’s easy to feel as if I’m stumbling around in the dark, essentially alone, even if that is far from true.

Reflecting on this situation, the only solution that I have some sense will help is to find ways to give and to love others—those I know and those I don’t. Having a dear partner satisfies, I suspect, because we are constantly present with that person in a state of love. The extent to which we exercise our capacity to love outside of ourselves may well be the deciding factor in how lonely or how complete we feel.

If this is true, what I’m seeking is the opportunity to express love continuously, to one or to many. My life’s purpose is to increase the number and intensity of my opportunities to act from love. That certainly changes the traditional paradigm and redefines the life direction that will enhance my happiness. In this paradigm, the opportunity to greet and serve with love everyone I meet every day creates bliss.



In Love November 18 2009

You and I discussed often

The joy of loving – how different from

“Falling in love. “

We didn’t fall in love,

Didn’t feel that soaring, breathless sense

Of vertigo and craziness

That ends in painful depths.

We just knew that love was there already

And that it could continue to expand

Throughout our lives.

We walked into each other’s sight,

Knew there were no limits,

And walked on from there together.

Can that happen yet again?

I don’t know. I’m grateful that it happened once!

Calendar Follies

Calendar Craziness November 17 2009

It’s a free-for-all!

These little boxes on a page –

Some filled in, and some still empty –

Like a puzzle in the paper.

That little book is with me always.

Every talk and email requires that I look at it.

I discuss meeting with a friend.

She takes time and then gets back to me.

By then, the box she picks is full;

Another meeting has slipped in,

A photo-finish in the race.

It feels like playing Musical Chairs --

Events circling round my calendar,

Grabbing spaces when they can,

Jostling, pushing, not at all polite!

And yet, I'm feeling free from time’s constraints,

As I live with an awareness of the life beyond this earth.

Only love matters.

Love is a new dimension – without limits or regrets.

In love, time expands to what is needed

To accomplish all that must be done.



Reflection:

This is my life, this procession of moments. It’s interesting to note that I’ve been feeling a greater sense of freedom to select the best use of each moment, rejoicing in the moments rightly spent.

I seem to have learned to some extent that even when I am doing what someone else needs done at a given point, I have a choice in the matter; doing what the other person needs is satisfying for me as well as helpful for them. The same is true with commitments of time to organizational needs. I’m much more willing to see such gifts as a happy choice on my part than I used to be.

Part of this change of heart may have resulted from losing you, My Love. During your illness, I often felt constrained to help you or to do the household tasks that you would have done had you been able, but couldn’t. It was hard to be responsible for all the needs of two people. It often put me back in the space of being a mother responsible for her child’s needs whether it was convenient or not, no matter how tired or overwhelmed I might be feeling.

But after you left, I realized deep in my heart what a privilege it had been all along to do what the person I most loved in the world needed me to. I also realized that it was my choice – my loving choice – to do everything I could. I learned, somehow, that this was the only thing really worth doing with the moments of one’s life – sharing love with others.

Nothing else really matters in the perspective of eternity. That’s what changed for me when you left – the realization that life is about eternity, not about the moments that tick by here on earth. It’s about giving rather than getting or holding. As with Christmas celebrations,  deep happiness comes from the love we can show to those around us.

Tonight, I went to visit my daughter and grandsons. My son-in-law is traveling on business, out of the country. The kids and my daughter were tired of being with each other all day, and my daughter desperately needed a bit of freedom. I would previously have grumped about the need for me to step in. Instead, I did step in, and spent time playing with the kids and loving them, so that my daughter could go off and do things she needed to do for her own comfort and peace of mind. I realized when I left to come home that I’d been able to change my schedule and my expectations of what I was going to do this evening, and I was glad that I could do so. I had fun with the kids, and was really happy that I was able to give my daughter this gift of time. Grace inhabited these hours. The kids responded to my attention and played happily so that what I meant to do worked. They were occupied, content, and out of my daughter’s way. Somehow, there was enough time to spend helping, and also to accomplish other things that seemed important to me this evening. There was magic going on, and I was grateful. Life seemed worthwhile.

It’s ironic – the complexity of my calendar has increased, yet I feel more centered about how I’m using time. I have a greater sense of personal power in doing what seems important to others, and at the same time I’m experiencing a sense of fulfillment in allocating my time to things that are important in the transcendent view of life – aware that the life beyond this physical one is real, and that earthly life, despite appearances, is not what’s important. Opening up my view of life has somehow expanded resources for me outside of measured time, so that the hours and minutes seem newly elastic and abundant. What an amazing change!

Memorials

Rosemary: Collaterals November 16 2009

When grieving, we think after a while

That the loss will move further back into the past.

We don’t know all the ways that it will be renewed,

Again and yet again.

We can’t predict the doctor’s office call

To reschedule your missed appointment –

Planned more than a year ago;

Or the subscription renewal notices that still arrive;

Or what it’s like to lose someone who shared my loss.


Inger’s moving to a new life far away.

She started work for us when you and I moved to this house.

You taught her how to do the daily tasks your way.

You became friends, enjoyed each other.

She shared your passion to care for things,

To make and foster beauty, do things right --

Respecting essence of fine wood, silver, glass, and leather.

Inger was so helpful to me after you had died,

Keeping things together, creating continuity.

Now she’s moving, taking with her your wisdom and your skillful craft,

Packing up and lugging off her many memories of your life --

Your needs, your quirks, your loving twinkling eyes, your laughter and your pain.

I warmly wish her well.

And yet, her leaving here renews my grief.

I’m losing more of you as Inger leaves.

Reflection to Ellen:

Life does move on after losing someone. Things break. People move. Situations change. The imprint of the person’s actions and deeds fades. In places, events, and things, other people’s energy is laid over that of the one who is gone . People forget. Only love remains sharp and present -- love and photos. But I sometimes even look at photos of you and think that your image in them has faded – is that possible?

I guess it’s the same phenomenon as happens to distant memories of our own experiences – they fade. They become episodic rather than continuous. They end up as tiny snapshots, shards of memory . Strangely, although the images fade, the feelings remain robust, vivid, powerful. Both love and sadness retain their power to overwhelm me, to fill all the crevices and crannies of my soul.

I just learned about a talk recently given by my sister Dorothy who had lost her teenaged son in a bicycle accident several years ago and whose husband is dying of cancer. She has started a successful foundation in her son’s memory, to train service dogs for people’s unique needs and disabilities. She was speaking at a milestone event for the foundation, marking the graduation and placement of two of the first dogs they’ve trained. She said, wisely, in talking about her family’s grief, that we can’t stop a storm, but we can learn to dance in the rain.

We all, as we go on in life, have our personal storms that dampen our innocence. May I – may we all-- learn to dance in the rain!

Ellen: Embers (undated)

My spirit is reduced to embers.

How do I blow on it to make it come alive?

Community

Dressed up November 15 2009



All dressed up, at church, we look our “Sunday Best.”

Peacock colors, jewelry, here and there a special scarf –

It’s fun to be “decked out,” to feel beautiful.

What inspires us to wear bright clothes and gems?

We’re just adorning the external body,

The part that separates us from each other.

Inside, we’re all one spirit, all the same.

Together, we express the rainbow’s beauty,

Divine palette -- light, and hue, and love;

Our voices and our energy -- one resounding praise –

Bespeak creation’s bliss – together.

Hand

Beautiful Hands November 12 2009


Infants contemplate their hands,

Exploring, testing, and just watching.

I’ve always thought “How cute!”

But nothing more.

I’ve taken hands for granted,

Failed to heed their intricate ballet

As, seemingly without effort, they move back and forth,

Both sensitive and strong, performing marvels –

From stroking a loved cheek to pounding on a table for attention --

Twisting, weaving, holding, reaching, talking, making art and love and music.

These delicately tuned extensions of our minds –

Gifts of the Creator -- miraculous design.



Reflection to Ellen:

Last night, excruciating, stabbing neuralgia in my injured hand kept me awake for 5 hours. It woke me, and I couldn’t ignore it and go back to sleep. I paced, wondering what could possibly help. I put on an ice pack, took a nerve- soothing medication, dissolved Vitamin B12 under my tongue, took extra B vitamins in general, took Tylenol, slathered skin-numbing Lidocaine cream over the whole surface of the pain. I finally, with a homeopathic remedy, got it to stop enough so I could go back to sleep at 6 am. None of the other things I’d done had made any difference at all.

Ellen, you felt similar neuralgias, all your life, generally at night, in your injured arm and hand. You would quietly get up so as not to wake your family or, later, Jeannine or, even later, me. You’d pace, and try all the same measures, and have to wait till the nerves quieted down on their own. Last night, I got to experience first hand the agony of that lifelong pain you suffered, and the helplessness of not being able to do anything to quiet it.

This injury is likewise forcing me to do what you always wished all your loved ones would do – go through life for several days using only one hand. Having only one hand to use is seriously disabling. It also requires being willing to receive help for tasks that everyone else takes for granted. After you moved into your loft, you would go down to the doorman each morning and ask him—a relative stranger -- to button your blouse and put earrings in your ears. You needed mechanical assistance with many tasks that are simple to do with two hands, but impossible with one. I have been so glad to have your one-handed tools still in the kitchen – the battery operated can opener that circles the can on its own with no manipulation required, the cutting board with tacks to pinion to the board the things being sliced, the scrubbing brush that fastens to the sink with suction cups and allows one to scrub a piece of fruit or vegetable by rubbing it back and forth across the stationary brush…

I’ve also been glad that I had those years of observing your creativity in doing things differently one-handed that others do with two hands – using gravity to position things to be fastened together, or relying on other physical grasping structures that we don’t normally think of – lips, teeth, chin, underarms, thighs, and feet. I’ve found myself imitating your adaptations – like standing a glass or dish in the sink so I can wash it inside and out, the sponge in one hand, without having to hold it in the other. Washing dishes this way is awkward and slow. I found myself today opening mail by cutting off one end of the envelope with scissors, as you always did. It actually works well as a one-handed mail-opening technique.

You always expounded on the inconvenience of having everything take twice as long. When it took me 45 minutes this morning to shower, shampoo, dry, and lotion myself, I saw first-hand how accurate this perception was. Daily tasks done this way eat seriously into the day’s available time.

Beyond the self sufficiency that one can create by using inventive methods, however, there comes inevitably the need to depend on others to help – to buckle a seat belt, clip fingernails, zip a coat, arrange flowers attractively in a vase, lift a heavy tray, open lidded containers. I did all these things for you as a matter of course when we were together. I helped you dress and undress, hang up and retrieve clothes, prepare food, tend your nails, carry gear and purchases, arrange things in closets, retrieve from the freezer items that were wedged under others, open packaging…

I’m also seeing how frustrating it is to need to defer tasks that could be done two-handed in a couple of minutes to a later time or day when I can ask someone else to do simple things for me. It’s embarrassing, as well as frustrating. It puts me in an infantile role vis a vis the helper.

I’m understanding now, from the other side, the intimate collaboration between us that these daily tasks fostered. That I routinely provided your second hand bonded us much more closely than would ever have happened under the usual circumstances of living with someone. In a way, though that often seemed an inconvenience, it was an amazing gift of love to both of us.

I’m extraordinarily fortunate that I can still use a keyboard with facility. That was your supreme frustration as a one-handed person, your inabililty to type quickly and effortlessly. Ironically, as technology evolved, the ability to type, scorned in our adolescent days as a menial task, became the key to expressing oneself and communicating easily across time and space. For decades, you fought tenaciously to encourage software developers to create a functional voice dictation system for the Mac computer that would translate speech to written words. You spent precious hours every day Beta testing frustratingly inadequate systems, and trying to communicate effectively by phone with youthful, incomprehending tech support personnel , some of whom appreciated your intelligence and insight and became your unseen friends.

Your goal – to write these insights yourself, to communicate to the world what it’s like to be disabled in this way, and the sheer grit, determination, and overwhelming effort it took to live semi-“normally” with this kind of disability. You always made things look so easy that no one understood what each small completed task had cost you, each neatly folded piece of clothing or meticulously polished shoe. You felt isolated. You knew that your daily life had required heroism and incomprehensible determination. You knew that you had achieved success on the level of an Einstein or a Beethoven, but no one realized it, because your disability was never factored in to their perceptions. You felt, accurately, that this was grossly unfair.

The software of your dreams did not come true before you died. You were never able to share with others, in writing, what you wanted to say. It was an extraordinary coincidence that I injured my hand in this way on the anniversary of your death. Dealing with the aftereffects of the injury has made this part of your message more personal and vivid for me. Living my life for the moment with but one hand to use is giving me the chance to put myself in your shoes to write these words. It’s yet another example of how I’m becoming better acquainted with you, dynamically, after your death. As I attempt, in your absence, to share with others your lessons of compassion and understanding , I’m also learning to know and love you even more than when we were still together.

Taking the time and trouble to understand those who experience the world from perspectives and abilities different from our own does this – it enlarges our capacity to experience love and compassion.

Ellen: Dead Dick

4/20/91


My right arm hangs limply

At my side

Like a dead dick.


Having sensation

But unable to move,

To act, penetrate, perpetrate.



How sad

For a woman

Who makes love

With her hand[s].

Healing

Healing Process November 11 2009


An injured hand that’s bleeding still.

From more than a week ago.

It’s not just sliced – there’s a crater,

A hole where flesh was torn away.

All that must fill in before finally

The pain and blood can start abating.

It’s not unlike what happens when we lose

Our closest friend and spouse –

It digs an aching hole in life and heart –

A cavern, dark and agonizing.

It takes a long time to fill itself and heal --

For us to freely live again,

No longer always conscious of the hurt.

When my finger heals,

There’ll be a scar, and part will still be numb –

Permanent reminders of this gash.

It’s the same as with the heart wound from my loss –

Though life goes on, I’m changed, forever.

Earth-Life and Soul-Life

Rosemary: Fabric November 10 2009


To prepare for an office visit,

I take off and fold my clothes.

I touch the fabrics, rough and smooth,

Heavy, lighter,

Hard to fold or crumpling easily.

I marvel at this invention from prehistory,

Strands of fiber--

Gifts of plants, animals -- even earthstuff –

Woven into warmth, strength, and shelter.

Without fabric, we are weak, naked, vulnerable.

We humans, with our brains and souls, could not survive

On earth without the whole planet’s help.

I regard my pile of clothes with awe,

Grateful for what the Universe has given me.



Rosemary's  Reflections:

Abraham’s word of wisdom for today: whatever we think about for a few seconds vibrates with us and becomes a part of our lives. Our soul-minds create the way we experience life in the physical world. I think of you, and you come to life here, within me. I envision peace as I meditate, and sink into the joy of unity with all that is. I feel small, chilled, and naked for a moment in the doctor’s office, but it makes me realize, intensely, the ways in which the Universe supports me – supports us all – with its bounty, making physical life easier and more comfortable, allowing mind and spirit to focus on the truth of soul-life rather than on the minute to minute demands of the body. On the radio this morning, as I heard a “Meditation on a Beloved Place” by Tchaikowsky and resonated to the familiar wordless feeling in that music, I struggled to open a can of cat food despite the injury to my dominant, stronger hand. To open a can, one must be able to hold the opening tool! Another reminder of the body’s vulnerability. But the beautiful music kept my mind and spirit in a space of beauty and gratitude.

Through these somersaults between physical and spiritual reality, I realized how you found joy as you approached dying – experiencing physical pains and indignities peripherally while remaining attuned within to eternal and universal Truth and Beauty – a gift of Grace.



Ellen: EYE OF A NEEDLE

The next eye

Of the next needle

Of my life:



To stay

In this ineluctably pained body

With nowhere to go



Except through the tiny eye of agony

To find bliss

On the other side.


Revised 5/14/96

Homecoming

Another Homecoming November 8 2009


Each trip leads to a new homecoming,

Changing what “home” means to me.

This time, I’d felt compelled to leave the house we’d shared

So I could grow new memories

For the day you died.

Of course, I felt your presence on that day.

I also missed the sense of safety I feel here.

Today, I looked around at this familiar place,

Feeling new appreciation for the

Friendly objects that surround me

And remind me of your life, your love.

Our home embraces me, as you so often did.

Like a small child, I smile and relax.



Reflection:

A life. It combines so many elements. They’re centered here, where I live. My loving memories of you and of loved ones who’ve visited inhabit this house with me, like so many friendly ghosts. The dog and the cats share this space and add the sparkle of their spirits to the daily round of living, eating, breathing, bathing, relaxing, meditating, picking up, sleeping. Each object spins its story at my slightest gaze – where it came from, whose it was, what events involved it, what feelings sprang to life. Each motion of the day recalls past moments, mine or yours – pulling back the bedroom curtains to greet the day, opening the fridge to start preparing breakfasts for everyone, sitting in the family room or living room to relax, visiting your office to meditate, seeing new patients in my office or in the living room. Although life consists of each present moment, it seems immeasurably enriched by these reflective slivers of present moments from the past –providing this moment’s context, adding a multi-hued dimension of many feelings. As I look around and inhale deeply the aura of this beloved place, reliving the stories that imbue each object – furnishings that were chosen thoughtfully and cherished lovingly -- it’s strange to think that when I, like you, have left for the next plane of life, this will just be a house, these will be just random objects, their history vanished – an estate sale.



Future Estate Sale November 8 2009

I look around me at the chairs, the tables,

Framed diplomas, desk drawers filled with objects from our lives,

Each trifling item weighted down with stories,

Burnished with portentous meanings that are only yours and mine.

Each vase and book, each dish and clock carries a unique patina

That reflects our lives and tells our story.

But the drama’s locked within our memories.

Once we’ve both departed, they’ll be disconnected objects once again,

Random pieces, priced to sell, all magic meanings gone – just “stuff.”

Lines of Energy

Choices November 7, 2009


A maze with many open exits –

That’s a life.

I sat with your one-time partner

This past week, and thought

Of how your lives would have differed

If you’d stayed together all this time.

We never know, of course, how the other

Paths we could have chosen

Would have ended.

And we never know before we make a choice

Where it will lead.

Who have we touched?

What have we changed, for us and others,

With a simple choice of this step over that.

We can only know that life’s in fact a complex grid,

Not the straight line we like to think.



Reflections:

I just got back home from a trip – a first for me. It entailed a day’s drive alone, to a place I’d never been, to enjoy the amenities of a resort hotel, spa, room service, restaurant – to have a good time by myself. What will be different in my life and in the lives of others because I followed that simple idea? I don’t know, of course. But I do know that I generally have no idea of how the many choices that I make on a daily basis impact the ways of others’ lives or of my own. One part of the trip was to visit Jeannine, the long-time partner of your youth, and her present partner, Carol, who was your childhood friend. They had just moved, and had not yet settled in. As I spent time with them, I pictured you with either of them now – in how many ways your life – all of our lives!! -- would have been different if you and Jeannine had not parted ways twenty-five years ago. There’s no way to picture how things would have worked out for any of us, because we didn’t follow that path. I don’t generally think, as I make choices daily, how the path I choose at each turn will echo in many lives forever. Yet this is exactly what happens, constantly. These choices are ours to make. I find it overwhelming to contemplate the complexity of the universal grid of energy and events – so intelligent that it encompasses and accommodates the endlessly random outcome of an infinite number of free choices, constantly.



Energetic Grid November 7, 2009

Driving through the mountains,

Encapsulated on four wheels,

I’m freely floating through a richly woven palette

Of Energetic lines and patterns.

Trees, bushes, leaves, clouds, infinity of sky

Blend with fractals shaped by rising, falling, swirling land.

I’m outside of time and space,

Merging with eternity – becoming motion.

Present moment

Through a Door November 5 2009


I awoke today

Tears already streaming from my eyes.

What did I dream? I don’t remember.

Is the date I lost you

Engraved so deep in me

That I had just relived that moment in my sleep?

I was innocent before we met,

With no idea about the door

I’d enter once I’d known your love.

I can’t go back now to the other side,

But must continue here,

Knowing and yet missing you.

Love, like Eve’s apple,

Changed my way of knowing and of being.



Reflection: This present moment is all there is. We make up the rest, as has often been said. We imagine meanings for the past, and dream up possible future scenarios that have no relationship with reality. This morning, my tears simply were. I had no way to interpret them, to imagine possible causes or meanings. Each present moment, if lived attentively and deeply, changes us, transforms our spirit. This morning I awoke in a place – in the mountains of Tennessee -- with which I had been unfamiliar. My tears flowed, for old memories. I was also engaged in making new ones. In this way our life goes on – new memories overlaying and interweaving with ones from the past, with each new moment. In this way, we continually recreate ourselves.



The Present is My Friend November 1 2009

I look at others sometimes,

And tremble with my fear that their suffering may presage my fate.

I have no way of knowing.

But the Present is my friend.

It’s always simply here.

If I stay within its boundary

I am cushioned from the gang of pasts and futures

That my worried mind can conjure up, with all their ills.

In the present, my imagination rests.

My moments are all singular.

My two choices: to accept or struggle.

Accepting is the way to peace, while struggle causes pain.

Grateful, I decide: accept this moment, here and now, and live in love.

November 5 2009 - First anniversary

November 5 2009 – First Anniversary


A slashed finger – strange accident. Not everything has to have a reason, although everything that happens has consequences – people I wouldn’t have met (or would have), or a different appreciation for the blessing of intact, working hands. It’s ironic that, on this anniversary of your death, I’m dealing with the consequences of an injury that temporarily forces me to do everything with one hand. It’s also ironic, somehow, that on a small scale, I will experience from now on – because nerves were severed – numbness in the same fingers that were numb on your injured hand. Total coincidence? Perhaps. But strange, under the circumstances. I know it will remain for me a poignant reminder of you, and of this anniversary day.


Co-Creating November 29 2008

Two minds, two hearts, three hands..

One spirit, Creating one life for our time together.

Two houses, two kitchens, two histories , two professions

Unified in us, in our space, our aura.

We were Not one, Not two –

Instead something other, beautiful, hopeful, more --

We lived the love that humans long for in their deepest hearts.

Now you are there, and I am here – Still united.

We sit astride, one foot on earth, the other where?

I wonder how to be in two places.



Two Places November 5 2009

A light-filled rainbow

Spans the chasm between here and there –

Like a live, transmission line

Crackling with our energy, our shared ideas --

Our souls linked forever.



Jahrzeit Candle November 5 2009

Today's the day.

I light the candle, sit still in mindfulness.

Like the warm and ever-changing flame

Your spirit still is glowing in my heart.

I feel consoled.

I feel your love, your light.
I'm grateful for the time we walked together.

Your brightness brings to mind your strong, enfolding hugs.