you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky”
Buddha
I’ve been lucky or blessed maybe. My encounters with death or loss have been extremely few and far between. I lost my parents … pretty much the way it should be… to old age, well into my own adulthood. Blessed be.
When I was young, I hated it when people would accuse me of leading a “sheltered life” but, truth is, I did. Pretty much. As a result I was rather ill equipped to deal with a lot of life’s little slings and arrows. But… you live and learn. “Tomorrow’s another day” my Mom would always say.
I’ll sing what I said
We come and we go
That’s a thing that I keep
In the back of my head
Sometime in my late 20’s I fell in love with the most amazing man, an artist. Toss all these guys into a Rock Polisher, tumble them a bit, and see what gems emerge: Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, Mark Twain, Dali, Picasso, Magritte, Tom Waits, Jack Sparrow … and a bit of Keith Richards too… and you get Mik.
It’s kind of a long story, easily a book’s worth, but in many ways, it’s really just a short story. Y’know … if you edit out a lot of the superfluous details. Just a straightforward story of Love really. And heartache.
It was twenty something years ago, at the ripe young age of thirty, I learned one of my first major life lessons about inconsolable losses. Divorce.
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but now it’s come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.
We were married actually, but not for terribly long. (No kids.) Hard to explain that one, but just take my word for it. Promises were made and broken, pets and friends were divvied up, and many very long nights were spent (by me at least) moping and weeping. And writing. I reached a point where I was able to let go of the trivialities of it all, but I … struggled, I mean, really struggled, with an absolute form of letting go. I refused to, actually.
I’m weird that way. Loyal to a fault. Irish. I dunno.
The way I came to a place of acceptance eventually, after countless spiral notebooks filled with pathetic self indulgent whining, was the realization that some losses are simply inconsolable. Release came in the realization that there are losses that you just never will take the well-meaning advice of friends and family: “Get over it”.
No. I won’t “get over it”.
~Rene Magritte
So I didn’t. After a period of extricating ourselves from the marriage part of it, we succeeded in salvaging a true friendship, uniquely ours, well guarded and secure. An inside joke we had was my idea (threat) to have a t-shirt made that said: “I married {his name} and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Heh.
But I did move on. I re-married & have a beautiful daughter. She has my eyes. Years ago.
and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”
Lifelines
Two weeks ago yesterday, I got the call I’d known for years one day could come. My ex husband had died. My dear old friend, once lovers but so much more. Cherished friend. Soul friend.
It was like someone had punched me in the gut.
you silly boy
put your arms around me
take me home
you silly boy
all the world’s not round without you
I wandered around in a daze for several days and listened to lots of songs on youtube. Talked with friends, asked questions, cried a lot, and came again to that same place of acceptance. Some losses are simply and utterly inconsolable.
It was slightly easier this time, oddly enough. Having lost him once already, I had twenty years of distance from the glorious mundanities of his life. I have long since moved on with my own life and living, but now … this … it really has finality.
Gone.
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.
Strangely, after those first shocky days, I felt a burden lifted, a release, an acceptance. Relieved of duty. I don’t have to save him now.
Father/Mother … into your hands we commend his spirit.
I guess I can let go. Finally.
But you and I know what this world can do
So lets make our steps clear that the other may see
And I’ll wait for you
If I should fall behind
Wait for me
It’s strange, the calm I feel. It is finished. Peace.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
See ya on the flip side, babe.
Blessed be.
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This is hard, seeing it in black n white. Obit published today (which I helped to write).
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for being so caring and supportive.
strange times.
gain and loss the one taste….
bittersweet…..
We always will lose everything. But we can be here each moment and here’s wishing you that. In each moment everything is there and nothing is ever lost, ever. Still one grieves with ones own grief for another and I do so now.
this is just too beautiful, my friend.
(((hugs)))
d
way to remember…
my heart goes out to you
{{{{*{dear lady}*}}}}
for sharing this. If and when my ex succumbs to the ravages of time, I hope I express myself half as well as you.
But in case you’re ever at a loss for words, I leaned a new Vietnamese phrase today: My hovercraft is full of eels.
Keep on keeping on. And don’t fake the funk.
A close friend of mine sang this at this stepfather’s funeral. The music and lyrics have just stuck in my head
Just Breathe – Pearl Jam
May the Goddess guide Mik on his journey to the Summerlands. May you and his family and friends find Peace.
Blessed Be.
Love, TMC
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Blessings be with you!
Having read what you wrote, and the comments of the others in response, I am once again reminded why it is that I continue to gravitate toward Docudharma, and why I consider this place to be a home away from home.
As the horizon,
Dimly visible,
In my rear view mirror,
Recedes,
Ever more faint,
In the growing distance.
The place ahead,
Where the earth,
And the sky meet,
Draws ever closer.
The pace toward that,
Inevitable destination,
Ever quickening,
My brief journey’s close,
Looms ever nearer.
My heart so urgently,
With pounding pulse,
Holds its breath,
Awaiting the answer to,
That most important question,
Did I dare to love?
Maybe, just maybe, those of us who can approach that ultimate milestone in our lives, answering yes to the question posed in at the end of the verse, can feel at least some measure of peace and contentment.
As we recall those who were part of our past, there will be some who we knew for too long, and came to know too well.
And others, who were part of our lives for all too brief a time, and we are left to wonder, “What might have been possible had we known each other just a little while longer?” These are the ghosts from the past destined to haunt us till the end of time as we know it.
A life during which we were able to love and be loved cannot be in vain. You ensured that, for your ex, half of the requirement was fulfilled. He was a most fortunate person.
During such times, such a sudden and final sense of inevitability, leaves us with a profound sense that unanswered questions will ever remain a part of our present and future.
These are, without a doubt, the bittersweet sorrows that mingle with the joys of those pleasant memories of those boundless dreams of our youth.
May much healing and comfort increasingly become a part of you, in its own time, place and manner.
I can only offer the following as a form of tribute. I do hope that it might provide some soothing comfort…
… your loving tribute to your friend. Thanks and my condolences for your irreplaceable loss in the cycle of life.
Beautiful feelings, so well expressed.
…as we realize we have all known someone special like Mik.
…I was born four days earlier than him, 9/23/1953, thanks.