I don’t know where to begin… I never do. I have a hard time knowing when to stop as well.
My mother’s been on my mind alot of late, since her passing into the next realm, whenever I feel moments bigger than me coming on, she pops in to keep me company. I’ve been able to ease the pain of her passing in accepting her presence without fuss. I used to cry rivers whenever I thought of her, now I am able to think of her and listen… I can control the quell of my own emotions.
This week was an important one for me. Probably one of the most important I’ve ever felt. I’m coming to the apex of a mountain I’ve been climbing for nearly 3 years (or my whole life, depending how you look at it), the road is evening out, it feels less uphill, and I think I may actually be picking up speed. I think I have the time of my life coming up. (or, I’m living it now…lol)…
So, I mention my mom popping up everywhere this week… on the bus, in my ipod, on the gas price sign, in the red gummy bear I picked up off the floor this week :) (my mom kept a gummy bear stuck to her desk all her life, she was famous for it, and by the end of his tenure, he was hard as a rock, and thickly covered in dust).
In the majestic fomation of geese flying as one in the sky….
Today my family gathered to…. I get a lump in my throat when I think about it… divide her treasures amongst us. We all managed to sail through the exercise with grace, ease, and dare I say… maturity and honesty. We shared good laughs, good memories, together, with no divisiveness at all…. I found the experience so enjoyable that I wasn’t able to cry.
We now each have a pound of tokens to carry with us that each in its own way reminds us, of the grace that comes from enduring loss, and the weightiness of that lesson.
I am especially reminded by a particular token, one that I grabbed at the last minute. One that I hadn’t thought of (none of the items I remembered were among her collection).
It’s heavy… … the medal is the size of a pocket watch, burnished gold with a seagull polished into the centre. He is clearly determined, and his wings spread wide. It freefloats inside it’s casing…
You turn it over… another smaller, soaring gull greets you and you read:
“You have the freedom to be yourself… here and now.”
And in smaller writing… the author “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”
Early in their marriage, the year I was born, there was a book published called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. My father bought my mother this medallion… If you didn’t look at it closely, you’d think it was gaudy (the 70’s were great for gaud..). It looks like something you’d see hanging around a hairy chest with the buttons undone to the navel….
But when you look at it closely, and absorb its meaning….
They were young, they were in love, and he thought so much of her that he thought she could fly if only he could make her understand… in the weight of a trinket offered as a token….
I feel bad for my dad. He’s all alone now. No matter how much company he keeps, it’s not enough to make up for the absence of that voice, the one who whispered in his ear all those years ago that she would walk with him…
…and they could fly together…
She is still flying, still here, still forever polished into our burnished psyches letting me know….
That I have the freedom to be myself, here and now.
That I can fly if I let myself.
*****
And now trust me, I’m crying.
I sometimes wonder why I write these things, why I share. I get so few comments I often forget that there are people who read this thing.
And I know people, I know one person in particular, whose journey has intersected mine, and who I mean enough to that she reads what I write. I know because I’ve shared in her itimacies of late as well… and have garnered so much comfort and strength that I am able to absorb the devastation of losing my parent, my mother…. and move on with grace… and ease…
And I write these things for her. So that when it comes her turn, she will know that it is not so devastating, that the pain of loss is worth bearing when you know there are treasures to behoild on the other side.
I hope her dad hears this, I hope MY dad hears this, I hope all the lonely people out there who are in godammned spirit killing pain over loss of whatever type realize that it is in these moments of devastation that we find our truest selves, and that we can know…
That we can fly.