Tag Archive | bereavement

Looking Back, Standing Still, Thinking Forward

May3

One month ago today, my husband fell. It was Good Friday, and thus began his descent into the final weeks of his mortal existence. He entered the ER as a man still fighting, angry at fate, determined to get out of there as soon as he could. Sadly, that vital man never left the hospital.

On his darkest day, spring had extended a tentative hand. I’d expected to take him for a rambling drive along the shore, as he so loved to do. Instead, an ambulance bore him away. My drives will be solo now. He will be my unseen passenger, gazing through the windows as the road unfolds and rolls behind me. So much changes in a month!

Today, May 3rd, is one of those mornings when I can truly say, “God’s in His Heaven; all’s right with the world.” Of course, that applies only to my small corner of the world. In Nepal, nothing is right. In Baltimore, the aftermath of devastation will take time to clean up and heal. In many places, life is a struggle and the odds of survival are far lower than our own. We would be foolish to imagine ourselves the center of any universe, great or little.

Still, all I can do is celebrate the sunshine here. Where is Heaven, anyway? Is it a location? A spiritual state? An energy field? Another dimension? If God – either gender – is there, can He or She also be here? Do the two realms overlap? Will those of us in our material bodies ever connect with those who have moved to another form?

Is David wherever Heaven might be located? I’m assuming he’s in a place of rest, grace and healing. He deserves to be. He’d often claimed to be an atheist but he quite probably wasn’t. Agnostic, maybe, unable to know for sure and always up for a lively argument. But not a man in denial: his massive library testifies to his exploration of the vast and distant frontiers of science, history, philosophy, art, religion – everything that stands as testament to humanity’s finer (and lesser) achievements. Everything that makes us look up in awe and wonder. He has his answers now.

At the last, I choose to believe he accepted the existence of another, incomprehensible dwelling-place and of the Power that invited him to be there. He was alert and aware when matters of the soul were shared with him. His dear friend, John Symonds, sensed the strength of his acceptance. David had no voice, no movement, nothing but his eyes and ears. He had been reduced to vision and sound – the basics, his mind no longer concerned with food or drink or any other physical act. So he saw and he heard – watched and listened. That was enough, I think.

Who else might have been present in that room? His father, whom he never knew? His mother, with whom he needed to reconcile? His old friends long gone? The shouting boys of his childhood, the companions of his middle years? Whose faces were in the group assembled to lead him home?

In the end, he chose to leave for that unknown realm and departed in peace. Today as I work in the gardens, David will be in my thoughts. He so enjoyed his zero gravity chair, where he’d read and listen to the river. Cash was inevitably curled in the grass beside him. Gollum – who adored David and perhaps is with him again – slept in his little grave not far away. Nothing and no one is ever truly lost. This morning, I’ll walk across this bit of land and tend my flowers. I won’t be alone. The knitting of the heart’s bones will be slow. But they will knit in time.

funeral 3

An Absence of Sun

Nov23

People speak of the “dark night of the soul”. It is real. It is overwhelming. You wake up to it and wonder where the door is. Every step is barefoot on glass that has no shine. The cup sits at your left hand, glimmering with its burden, and you beg for it to be taken away. But of course, it isn’t. You have filled it yourself. Every sin you have ever committed – even those you’ve forgotten – swirls in its dregs. Every regret, every sorrow, every wrong done to others – they’re all part of that elixir. You stare at it, terrified to drink. But you will. Inevitably, you will.

This is the time for family – if you have one – to gather and shut the drapes against a darkfall that many will never endure. This is the time for friends to toot their horns as they pass, their headlights leading your pathway out. They have, after all, thought to acknowledge you, and thoughts are another kind of beam through the dusk. But on this night, you’re lost to family, though they may be unaware of it. Friends pass and follow their own destinies. They don’t see that overturned sky over your head. And they couldn’t raise it, should they want to try. You must protect them from that knowledge, and from that attempt.

So you draw the blankness around yourself like a robe. You turn off your porch lantern and cancel the warmth falling on your yard, where the grass is frozen. No sleepy birds murmur in this winter of your discontent. In the old days, wagons ringed a comforting fire. Wolves and night terrors dared not intrude. But there are no wagons now. No fire but a candle clumsily lighted. And the wolves tiptoe closer, baring the teeth of those who hate you. Sadly, they far outnumber those who love, because after all, this is your darkness. You have shaped it through your own pain.

Because no one is entirely without fault, and you understand this, you’ve muddled along as best you can manage. No one believes you won’t keep on doing it. You err because that’s the human thing. You get back to the road and survive a few more years. Your twist your ankle or shatter your heart as you fall off the margin of that road and of those years. Then you either limp forever after, or work out the injury and build yourself stronger for awhile.

And in the irony of ironies, chances are you will be noted most for the brilliance of your smile. You’ve learned to hide everything behind it. You’ve cultivated it like a flower that blooms best after sunset. And when people say, “You have the most beautiful smile,” you feel reassured. You have hidden well the shadow that would turn your face to a mask of grief.

But the dark night still comes. It closes down around you, the way cooling stones trap water. Perhaps this is how crystals feel, locked in their geodes, unable to shine for anyone until the rock is broken. The risk involves smashing the best and most beautiful of those gems. Escape entails a cost. Something inevitably cracks.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, indeed. You need not raise that particular question. The ringing drowns out all other music now. It goes on and on; it shakes the windows. You block your ears and it swells inside without the slightest softening.

But like the winecup, poured at your behest, you can identify where this tolling started. There’s no need to ask. You’ve hung that damned bell in your own soul, after all. Now you’ve hauled on the ropes, it won’t stop. It peals into that not-so-good night where no one goes gentle, and most don’t go at all. Only you, and only now.

You walk into the darkness on a carillon trail, unspooling silence behind you.

BW FB sickleIMG_1910

I No Gone Cat – the loss of a beloved companion

Jun29

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Gollum, 2003-2014 – the latest in my series of losses –

Some years ago now, I wrote the following poem and it seems to have become the one that  gets read more than any of my others put together. I’d just lost a young cat to cardiomyopathy, which hit him out of nowhere. Even my vet was caught off-guard. After I buried him, I sat down and wrote. My mother, who is mentioned therein, left on her own journey in November of that same year. We are, indeed, prepared for grief in many different ways.

For some reason, the poem took on a life of its own. It won the monthly IBPC competition for May of 2004, judged by CJ Sage, then was published in LilyLit Review, so it received an audience. People started asking for copies. They still tell me that they’re sending it to friends when a pet passes away. I’m happy that it offers comfort and am hoping it will continue to do so. Sam was a wonderful cat, and this is his story in his own style – with certain additional details that he has chosen to provide.

I No Gone Cat, You Just Not See Me

for Sam, 2000-2004
and for my cat-rescuer friend Laurie

I almost sleeping when he come. He say,
“Cat, why you not look up? Eyes see all
that be, until breath stop. Watch with eyes.”
When I open, he shine like morning, right
here in scary place. Two-leg mother
with me, talk touch, talk touch. I not
try stretch out claws, even after
she hurt my ear and trap me tight
for bring where are other sick ones.

“She love you,” Sun Cat say, “so she
want help you better but not time now
for her do that.” He stand close and then
I sitting beside him with no sore ear,
and ribs not breaking under. Puss on
table lie quiet, black-white like me.
He big fluffy boy with paws curled
and hay in tail. “What barn cat be this?”
I not want new enemy and he mighty
long fur but no move, him. Red earstick
and face shut off. “He be you, name Sam.”

Now I not smartest scratcher in litter box
but I know me and not-me, and him not me.
He stiff as shavings frozen in stall when I
dig for cover pee. He a dead old buddy.
I with friend who glowing all around.
It dark everywhere but Gold Mister jump–
just like that–off table in air. “Hurry,”
he call me. “You not my only today.”

And we outside, where is car and Two-leg
mother. She cry water salt on box in arms
and other two-leg carry cage but it empty.
We watch her go away and I very sad
for I remember she have love me.

“You tell goodbye,” Gold Mister speak
and surprise me. “Where your barn is?”
Before I answer, we there. Stray tom stand
in loft where I like fight him. “No,”
Gold Mister tell me though I not talk this.
“His now. He need home; you have fine
other place. Not worry about him more.”

Tom my enemy once but I no problem
for him now. Farm dogs run, maybe smell
me. They stop in path and grin so I tell
what happen. Hope they figure out.
“You gone away?” young stupid one ask.
Grey-muzzle lick at shadow and understand.
“We meet soon,” I tell her. How I know?

Others not outdoors but we are in house
and not through window, either. “They
allow see you this one day,” Sun Cat
explain, so I say we miss each other.
I make sorry for not always be friendly.
I mean son-of-a-tabby sometimes.

Car in driveway and Gold Mister
show me strange thing. Two-leg mother
dig deep deep deep, toss earth stones roots
and put plastic bag at bottom. It have
paw press against, white like Sam foot.
Wet in there so she shovel throw sawdust too.
“That from pile beside window where I napping
in winter.” Gold Mister not speak. “Why I
leave her? Just young fellow; needed here, me.”

He spin bigger than fireball that fall
from summer. “Job done,” he roar. “You get
her ready for bigger sorrow.” I understand
what he mean. She have little mother-
woman who very sick. She lose me, learn
get strong. But hard not tell her I watching.
She never even hear meow or feel tail brush,
before snow cover not-me. “You visit back
one time,” is all what I allowed. Then he
tell me stare at sun, no see home anymore.

They aster flowers where we hunt today. Old
cat mama near, even Siamese friend find me.
Gold Mister teach me how go back,
be some new kitten when I finish learning.
But this good place and I happy Sam now.

 

(c) 2004 BJ Tate

first published in LilyLit Review 2004; Cleansing (Rising Tide Press) 2005 and Wingflash (Pink Petticoat Press) 2011

 

Three family cats who have joined Sam over the years:  Mini (top), Raven (bottom left), Gimli (bottom right – my daughter’s cat).
Sam’s photo is missing from my files. I suspect it was stored on a CD that later became unreadable. 

Image

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA