WORD FOR THE DAY
Sunday, Sep. 14
And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
Meister Eckhart
Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the death of my sister-in-law, (surrogate mother, sister and best friend) Carol Alleva. There is something about reaching the first anniversary of any event that has significance, and perhaps there is celebration or ceremony which marks a milestone and the 365 day journey which precedes it.
Other than celebrating my husband’s birthday with a night out with good friends, I didn’t mark this anniversary in any special way. Carol had, perhaps, enough forethought about her own death to die the day after Ron’s birthday, two days after I had left on a three week trip to Ireland. While winding my way with a busload of tourists through the Irish countryside I learned of the “40 shades of green” for which the Emerald Isle is known. I learned also of "40 shades of grief" in mourning one of the most significant people in my life. I considered writing a tribute to her of the same name, but beyond a few cursory entries in a journal I originally bought to record my reflections of my journey in the land of my ancestors, I found myself too steeped in sadness to reflect on a life that entwined so deeply and tenaciously within my own, for nearly thirty years. Letting go, disentangling from the nearly daily routine of coffee and conversation, rant and reflection with Carol consumed more time, more tears, more distress and depression than I ever imagined.
I gave myself a year to mourn (a customary time in so many cultures) and found myself not dreading the day of her death, but anticipating it as one awaits the end of a pregnancy, or prison term, believing that new light would dawn like the sunrise of New Year’s Day--and the dark night of despair would lift, taking with it the fog of confusion and loss.
This Sunday morning arrives like most Sunday mornings--a rush to ready myself for mass, skipping breakfast, speeding on near deserted streets, sliding into my customary spot, just moments before song and prayer and blessed familiarity. Soon coffee and fellowship, a meeting of the Christmas bazaar committee, chatting with the woman who sold me a memorial plaque to grace the place where I sit week after week--a memorial to the woman whose ashes remain on a mantel, whose life was not celebrated or memorialized in ritual. No funeral, no burial, no closure, just the sheer number of days and days to ease and erase the timeline of sorrow.
I cannot dwell in the barrenness of grief any longer, in the bleakness of alone anymore. Time waits for the what next, the space of emptiness to be filled with more than just the comfort of task to take away the desperation of lack, of loss, of regretful longing. It is nearing noon and I am supposed to greet the people who have come to view the quilts made by the members of the guild to which I have belonged for a few years now (though I have made only two very small quilts in that time.) I feel alive among all this creativity and color, delighted and deferential to those who share this event and walk through the doors, awe and amazement dancing on their faces.
Creativity. It is my sustenance and my succor. The balm of busyness will not longer suffice to keep the listlessness of longing at bay, the denial of my true calling buried in the check list of must do and must have. How to disengage from the duties I have placed upon myself so that I would be loved, or respected, is far less clear than that I must do so, and do quickly. I realize this as I walk among the material manifestations of those who do as I wish to do, have always wished to do. I sew and I write, and while I do many, many other things, it is these two things I want to do well. I once believed I had to choose between them, that to master one, I must give up the other. Lacking either the will or the desire to do so, I did a lot of everything else, mostly.
But a year of letting go of someone, and something to do when I could not do as I wished, has come to a close. With surprising clarity I know the next steps, though I do not know where they lead (as it should be, I suppose) God give me the strength to disengage from what is no longer life-giving nor true to myself. It is time for the dead to bury their dead.
