Memento mori

Everything I see is a memento mori, a reminder of impermanence. Not just the skulls, the rotting fruit, the dead birds and bubbles of classical artwork, but also the delicate flowers, the clouds, the newly born animals, the shadows on the mountains, the light on the water. I see a reminder of impermanence in the dimpled knees of a baby as much as in the spotted and veined hands of a crone. Everything is changing, all the time. I look at my face in the mirror and I hardly seem like a solid thing. This too shall pass. This body, changing and aging all the time, will soon be gone. Life passes in the blink of an eye. Why pretend otherwise?

This is reality. I don't find it sad or depressing, but rather beautiful, right and perfect. Without death, each moment of life would not have the immeasurable value that it does. We value precious metals because they are a finite resource. So is this life.

My mind runs over these well worn tracks again and again. Am I repeating myself? Perhaps. But this is one of the most beautiful truths of my life, a message well worth sharing.


2017-05-13

the day I learned what grief is

the day I learned what grief is

that bone-deep agony

every part of my body aching and throbbing with pain

my mind a keening wail of misery

that moment of remembering, upon waking

the incontrovertible fact

that I’ll never again

look into those eyes

hear that voice

feel those arms around me

hear those familiar steps

and just as I was emerging from

that dark pit

where no light could reach me

I was plunged in again

even deeper than before

for a while, all I could do

in my dreams

was to float in a place of gray mist

shrouded by fog

as if wrapped in cotton wool

neither thinking, hearing, seeing, nor feeling

I had to drag myself back

back into life

back into pain

written 2016-05-11

about April 17, 2009

October grief, just like every year

October.

It’s October again. The grief has been creeping up on me for a few days, but I was busy and distracted and only noted a feeling of unease at the back of my mind without connecting it to October. I wondered vaguely what was wrong but was too busy and distracted until today to sit with it and identify the feeling.

The distractions are gone and the grief has come roaring up, no longer creeping quietly, almost unnoticed.

I lie on my bed and sob, wail, a mess of tears and snot and grief. It is not an easy thing, surrendering to this pain.

The weight of grief is back, pressing on my chest, constricting my breathing. My throat is tight, my eyes wet. My hands shake as I try to type this and my body is racked with sobs. My heart is breaking all over again. Oh, October. I thought this year might be easier, lighter. It’s been six years. But the pain is crushing me, ripping through me, tearing me open, again, like always.

This year another name has been added to the list of those I grieve. Another person gone, gone forever. This, this is the time of year I feel all those losses, stacked up like stones, pressing down on my chest. I feel like I’m being crushed by their weight. Another friend who was once my best friend has died. He is the fourth person who was once my best friend who has died. The third to die young. Unlike the others, he chose the hour and the means of his own death.

I feel weighted down, exhausted; my body is leaden. Every time I stop moving the grief wells up inside me again, stealing my breath.

I think about the way my Gramma died, surrounded by the women who loved her, her last breath leaving her body as I wrapped my arms around her, pouring all my love into her in that hospital room. I think about how my husband died alone, how suddenly his breathing stopped, his spinal cord crushed and severed. I think about how SH died, choked to death by her rapist in her own living room. I think about how SM died in despair, hanging from a noose of his own making in that green forest, next to Atascadero Creek.

Life is fleeting and fragile and painful and sometimes brutal.

2015-10-15 

at my husband's memorial, 2009