It would help a lot if grief were simple. If we knew what shape it would take; what time it would show up on any given day. If we knew a pill to take, or a diet to follow, that would head off the “symptoms.” But it’s always a surprise. Lurks around a corner when you least expect it. You could be having one of those days when it seems the cloud has finally begun to lift, and you’re actually having fun! Or at least, having an okay day. Just puttering along, thinking of nothing at all. Then, there it is. There you are. In the swamp, the crevasse, the impossible emptiness of loss. Damn!

Grief is inconvenient. It’s messy and irritating and embarrassing, and it knows how to hide. For a while. Until it doesn’t. Grief is lonely, even when you’re surrounded by people you love. Sometimes – oftentimes – you just don’t want to be happy. Who the hell wants to be happy when there’s a cold wind blowing right through you, every single day!?

Grief is mean. It nags and pokes and won’t leave you alone. It gets under your skin; hides out in your bones; shows up in your face even when you think you’re smiling. Other people notice, but you’ve forgotten how you look without it.

Grief is exhausting. It takes everything you’ve got, and then keeps taking.
It keeps calling you, and even though you want to ignore it, would give (almost) anything if you could run the other way, you turn toward it instead. You can’t turn away. Grief is seductive. It keeps saying, “Here, come this way. This is where you’ll find what you’ve lost. Stay with me for a while, and maybe…….well, you never know.”

And the problem is, there’s truth to that. Grief is, after all, what’s left of what you’ve lost. And as much as we think we might want to be free of the heaviness of loss, grief brings some important truths.

Grief means you’re alive. It means you still care. It means someone, or some thing, meant so much to you that you’re not sure life is worth the effort without what, or whom, you’ve lost.

It means that once, you were vulnerable; open and soft, unguarded, hopeful. It means you believed in joy. It means that, even now, you’re still linked with every living thing that shifts and stretches up toward a future, only to find an end at some point. It means you are somehow managing to stand, and bear, the wrenching reality of this lush and limited life. And you’re learning to say, “Yes. I can do this, even though it tears me apart. I am here, even though my beloved is not. I can breathe, wait for peace, have hope, find tiny bits of joy, open and expand my heart, learn how to face this new road forward.”

And that can be enough, at least for now.

I recently made a photo book for my friend Eleanor. She has lived on a hundred acres of land for 50+ years with her husband Rolf, then tended it for another 15 or so after he died. She’s been a woman in love with the land – has tended it carefully, known when the hay was set to bloom, and when the deer would slip out of the woods to feed in the clover field at dusk. She knows, even now, when the road needs to be repaired, and where the chanterelle mushrooms grow, and when the ticks will be bad. She loves the pin oak they planted decades ago, and the linden that hums with bees in the spring, and the hydrangea whose blushing creamy flowers will bend down to the ground. She has made a marriage with this place, watched it change, tended it carefully.

She loves the photos I’ve taken over the years; the birthday book that says, “This has been a marvelous world, and I have loved it fiercely.” And even though she’s been lonely since Rolf left, who knows how wonderful a lonely woman’s life can be? How many pearls of love and joy and care she scatters along the way?

I think your life was like that too, in a way. All those years of adventures and explorations, happy wanderings and passionate concerns; all those people and places, ideas and creations. All those wonders. And then later, your solitary and thoughtful years. Maybe you needed a quiet and smaller spot where you could celebrate, pore over, reflect on, the grace of your travels and the people you knew. Even though you were alone, you were still sharing your own pearls of love and joy and care.

I’m pretty sure that is still true.

11/5/18 –

A good walk this morning, taking the shorter route because of the cold, but so many fading and falling beauties wrap all around that I stop to get photos and my hands get frozen anyway.

At the lake, salmon swirl in shallow water, dart away from my shadow. The sky is pebbled with layers of cloud, but no breeze stirs yet, so the water is mirror-shiny and calm. The town is quiet. At the little general store, the usual guys hunch over coffee and talk about the world.

In the cemetery, Bodi follows scent trails of deer and I go after him into the woods. Despite the gray sky, so many layers of tan, yellow, tawny trees give off their own light. Today, the leaves are starting to let go – not the fierce, noisy whipping away, that happens in strong winds, but the Little Letting Go – the small sigh of regret, the quiet release, the fluttering down, the final coming to ground of The End after such a beautiful life.

As we all shall follow, in our own seasons of fierce love, of holding on, of sad regret, of fluttering down and coming to ground, still sharing the golden light of our lives even as we fall.

This morning, collard leaves are covered with frost that shines in the first sunlight. The hawkweed and grasses in the yard are stiff and glazed with white.

And even though I lugged the tall ladder out of the garage in last evening’s fading light, and clambered all through the bushy dahlia stems, stuck the old roof-rake handle and a few tall sticks into the flower bed, and tossed flannel sheets over all the lush summery growth so it would be safe from the cold, this morning the leaves are wilted and black. The sheets are stiff with frost. So it’s probably the end of the lush beauty, of so many summer colorful blooms.

The ending of so many things.

Today, my friend Eleanor leaves her mid-coast Maine farmhouse, where she’s lived for over 60 years. She needs more help than is close-at-hand, will have to settle into a new living facility down closer to her daughter in Texas. An adventure, I keep telling her. And also a loss.

So many things are loosening their hold, giving way to the inevitable.

And what can I do, but love. Keep in touch. Visit, call, send little notes, check in to see how her new adventure is going. We are all, as Ram Dass said, “just walking each other home.”

It’s one of the things I love about aging. A great grace, tucked into the mess of small everyday losses of getting older.

This past year, visiting my Louisiana home, I walked out into the yard to see how things were growing, and reflected on that truth. Here’s a little entry from that day –

Oct. 10 –
I stop by the house, am happy to see the garden that is wild with flowers despite the recent storm – yellow hibiscus and blue bog sage still in bloom, the red passionflower vine climbing all over the fence. I work for a while at the fallen hackberry tree that my neighbor Rusty has cut into chunks, pick up small branches and tug them toward the ditch. My skirt gets snagged on little twigs, my shoes smudged with mud, but I so love this earthy work – bending, lifting, trekking back and forth over the long grass in the gusty wind. Rusty comes over for a chat while I work – says he’ll do the rest tomorrow, take it all back to the end of the field and burn what he can. And his bees are doing fine, he says. He’s thinking of adding another hive or two.

We talk about life, and aging and how it’s changed us – how everything is love – how those so-many little ways we all squabbled over stupid things, or judged each other (better, or worse), are washing away. We have so little time…..

While we talk,
sun spills over
the forever-green,
the all-around green,
the grass the grass,
the bent-over hissing-wind-grass

Especially in the wretched work of grief, in this stumbling world, in these unsettled times, on this glorious but challenged Earth, we are surely all walking each other home.

May we all remember, and be glad. 

At the Florence airport, of course I’m thinking of you – the traveler. I get to the airport early after a wild taxi ride in morning traffic, make my way through all the gates and check-in duties, and begin the wait. Upstairs, at the gate that will eventually take me to Amsterdam and then Boston, so many people are lined up. Sitting in uncomfortable chairs, or walking around, all of us chatting about the various inconveniences and humors of travel.

Suddenly, I almost gasp. In one chair, sitting by herself, is an older woman with your face, your white hair. She’s more wrinkled than you ever were, but something about the hair, the dignity, is so familiar that, Oh, for just a moment I let myself believe – that it is you. I know I’m entering into a truth that isn’t true, but I so want it to be you! I so want to just sit with that moment or two of pretending. I still miss you, I guess. Or wouldn’t be too surprised if you showed up. I’m still holding the door open, just in case there is anything of you left. Today, it’s a stranger, a lone woman, with your face.

Maybe our lives will always be made up of those we’ve loved, even when they’re gone. Maybe you’re just a skin’s width away. Here I’ve been, wandering around the streets of Florence or Tuscany, relishing the adventures of just heading out, willing to be surprised, and you’ve felt so close.

Now, we’re delayed and might miss the connecting flight to Boston. But it’s been so sweet to think of you, to see that little reminder in (not quite) your face, Little One. You’re still so dear.

In whatever stage of grief we find ourselves, loss will never fail to color our lives. No matter how recent, or distant, the loss is, we will continue to live within the grief bubble of our ruptured love room. Like a lens that tints every aspect of our lives, grief is a constant window from which we view the world.

The older I get, and the further away the loss of my aunt (8 years ago!) – the more I experience the “polarities” of loss.

Knowing how fragile and tender life really is, my whole being cherishes everything I see, every person (or pooch!) I know, every new and gorgeous dahlia, all the courageous lives I witness or hear about. Sometimes, grief is a golden, gentle light.

And sometimes grief is a cloud, a fog through which I see everything. I wonder how anyone makes it through all the challenges of a life. I take in, and feel, the wrenching sorrows of the vulnerable people and beings and landforms of the world.

I have become a well of sorrows – at the same time that I have become a well of love – twin realities, neither of which I am ever really free. And maybe it’s okay. I am, after all, made up of this world that labors and loves, made up of the planet that shudders and forges on, made up of all the love that was poured into me and lifted me up, and of the small wounds and slights that pressed me down.

I live now with the ambiguities of being alive, and with the inexorable fact of the coming end-times of my own life.

Along the way, I’ve “absorbed” some of the unique qualities of my aunt; she’s inside of me more than ever now. Sometimes I find myself in the middle of a statement, or action, and I wonder if what I’m saying or doing is really wholly me, or is, in part, bits of my aunt that I took in and absorbed.

I guess love is always like that – something we take in, digest, absorb, and share as we make our ways through this struggling and stupendous world.

I’m grateful to my aunt for her example of how to head into my own later years – with courage and curiosity, with dignity and feistiness, with acceptance and resolve.

But – I’m not dead yet!

This morning, all the sunflowers in the ragged garden were bright, leaned over the grass, kept opening petals even though the squirrels have figured out how to climb their thick stalks and nibble out seed. Nothing could have been more beautiful.

So even though my aunt is gone, and even though loss continues to color all the days of my life, the lessons on how to carry on in this great work of loving life continue on.

When my aunt died at 102, I was fortunate to have known her for all my years. Throughout my life, she taught me many things – some by “instruction,” since she loved to teach, but other things I learned just by watching and interacting with her. Especially in her later years when her activities grew more limited, Min became my model for how to live thoroughly and gracefully even when the end is in sight.

My aunt was a lesson in savoring the moment – with humor, and laughter, and joy. I have so many photos of her laughing out loud, broken up with the irony or humor of a moment. “The quintessential Min,” one cousin called a photo of my aunt collapsed with laughter at a family gathering.

As her capacities diminished, Min adjusted her expectations. She couldn’t walk all around town – but she could still trek down to the little cafe a block away. She eventually stopped driving (at 98!) because, as she said, “I know what I need to do, but my legs are a little slow!” But she still kept in touch with family and friends by phone. She had a regular schedule for calling everyone on her list.

She taught me about letting go (holding on doesn’t really work anyway!) – about humility (no one’s perfect, and a pedestal is pretty shaky ground!) – and about suffering and how it shapes us (pain makes us what we are)

She learned about letting go, and that love is the only thing that matters in the long run. She talked about life and meaning and the Mystery and our place in it. She talked about the state of the world, and about taking pleasure in the simple joys of a life. She talked about common sense (it’s essential!) – and change (get used to it!) – and friendship (a necessary gift) – and how we see the past (savor the best, get rid of the rest!). She taught me about forgiveness (why not?), and about speaking the truth (even when it’s scary), and about family (they’re your people, after all!).

Sometimes, what my aunt learned came at a price. As resilient and spirited as my she was, she wrestled with quite a few challenges through the years. But she continued to learn, to be engaged, and to love life until the end. As I head further into my own older years, I’m sure my “interior Min map” will guide me through both the joyful and the challenging times.

At my little Louisiana home earlier this year, another small letter to my Aunt Min came spilling out. Lately I don’t write to her much, though she is still part of the fabric of my life. But sometimes, I’ll be in the middle of a journal entry and suddenly realize I am writing to her, spilling something out as if we were together again. There are so many things I think of, so many ways I love the world as she did. We were both constantly being broken open by the beauty and wonder of this life.

The following is a little entry that ended up being a letter to my aunt:

4/20 a.m.
A good and long walk on the levee this morning, then checking out newly-planted fruit trees in the back field. I’m sure they’ll do fine, but everything grows best in the light of a little love and attention. Nearby, the usual birds flit overhead, buffeted by a strong wind. Ibis, egrets, yellow-crowned night herons, little blue herons, red-shouldered hawks – they are all beautiful under the brightening sky.

And suddenly, I am missing you, Little One. Walking on your home ground, past the hidden river-sodden woods where growth is so lush – new blackberry flowers appearing since the flood waters have receded – wild onions still flowering and starting to seed – yellow dock in bloom – the first loquat flowers – the shining river in early sun.

I think about all the love I poured out – into plants, this space, the birds, the little everyday maintenance tasks that anchor a life. You did that too, in your own small ways, for over a hundred years.

Back at the house, small birds perch on cushions and chat at the feeder. I wonder who else will care about them when I’m gone. I guess the grass, the wildflowers, the birds, don’t really care who cares, or not. They practice a neutral, unattached love. But I think somehow they know, and appreciate, those of us who open our hearts – love even the tiniest wondrous things of a life – all those little flickers of splendor. And so I have.

It’s my friend Helen’s 86th birthday. We got together recently to celebrate, and just to catch up. Helen is doing fine, she says. The kids are doing well, the grandkids are wonderful. Her life is good. But she wonders why she’s still alive. Since Russ died, almost 20 years ago, she’s just waiting for her own end. She had a great life, with him. Over 50 years. They had kids, grandkids, a good time together, as a family. They lived a peaceful life; an attentive life. He had his projects; she painted pictures, knitted mittens for everyone. Found precious buttons to decorate sweaters for grandkids as they came along. They tended sheep; she carded wool, spun out yarn. They made maple syrup together for a while until one year the plaster ceiling over the old wood stove finally collapsed into the syrup vat after so many years of being loosened by steam from the boiling sap. They did so much together. Now, she says, she’s okay, but it’s a lonely venture.

It made me wonder about myself. I wasn’t married to you. Our love wasn’t that kind of bond. But you were my person, so young. My signpost of how a life could be, with a little passion and effort and faith.

Now, it’s been almost 8 years since you’ve been gone. And I’m pretty good. Grief seems more like just the color of my walls, the backdrop of my life, than something wrenching and impossible Loss happens. Things shift. We somehow keep moving on. The questions continue.

The following are a few notes from the Letters on how to keep loving the world:

*****

“This is what I would talk with you about, if you were here: how to sink into the juicy, jeweled brilliance, the fierce wrenching fire of loving the world even though everything will be swept away.”

“I walk in the woods this morning to the pond, where a green heron sleeps in the rain, head tucked into a wing, peeping up for a moment to see us, then down again. A not-so-easy day for a bird. Struggles and pains gnaw at all our lives, wild and human alike. How much we all carry, each in our particular ways: the suffering of being alive, the flash of beauty, the indwelling loveliness, the raw edges that press us down. The world – the heart of all that is – wrestles and loves, labors and gives birth.”

“How can so much of the love my heart poured out in your direction be going nowhere now? Does it just spill into the universe, grow thin and pale, disappear? Or does it somehow collect, settle into a special pocket of wonderful things, help to hold up the great going-forward of the world?

I have to think that this is true.”

“Will missing you last forever? How do I let anything go? How does the world keep moving on if losing even one person is so wrenchingly hard? How do I get my mind, my heart, to leap over this – the abyss where you used to live? Impossible.
But, Bodi is happy – sleeps pressed against my leg, his soft ear flopped over my knee. His breath makes a little damp spot on the satin comforter. Some things last for a while, I guess; habits, and small loves.”

“I hope that your way forward, if such a thing exists, is gentle and kind. I hope you can settle into rest. I hope you are swimming in love – that gigantic, quivering sea that is so much more than we know. I hope you can see that I’m happy; that things are okay; that I still love the world, even though you’re not in it anymore; that my breath still sighs with love for you every once in a while.”

*****

In whatever ways grief touches us, we continue to be part of life. We keep loving the world, one breath at a time, one small imperfect act of caring after another. We co-participate in the “great going forward” of the world, sometimes despite ourselves, mostly blind to what’s ahead. We are part of the crazy conundrum of fierce love and great grief and the everyday journey of carrying on.

We may never know how our courage and faithfulness and willingness to plod along, even in the darkness, contributes to the world.

I’m guessing we’d be surprised.

My friend E. is slipping away. Physically still strong, but getting tottery – her steps uncertain, her humor hiding forgetfulness. She writes things down. But she knows she’ll forget to look at the list, or tuck it into a pocket and never think of it again.

She’s turning 84. She forgets to eat. She’s so happy to see everyone, but forgets they’re coming and is always surprised when people show up.

She used to be strong. At 82, she was still vacuuming and mopping the floor of her 3-story, circa-1700 barn. She’s lived on and managed and loved 100 acres on the Maine coast.

There are so many things she still cares about. She loves the deer who slip out of the woods at night to nibble clover in the big field near the house, and who aren’t even bothered by the barking dog; they know it can’t reach them through the fence.

E. loves the tall and wide hydrangea bush that blushes, rose and ivory, in mid-summer. And the Wolf River apples from old trees that are gnarled and bent and still produce huge fruit she turns into pie every year. And she loves the fields when the hay flowers and eagles circle overhead and the porcupines lumber down the road in the near-dark. She loves the spring frogs who call up from the pond, and whose song seeps through her bedroom window.

And she loves the house. She’s lived out 60 years in that one place. Collected tiny wonderful things to fill it up, every bit cherished and dusted and arranged, just so. She’s paid attention to the details.

She loved Rolf, her husband of 60 + years, who went through his own dwindling and confused times, before he faded away. That was 18 years ago, E. says. She remembers that.

And she loved Bill, the neighborhood farmer who worked her fields. They shared a familiar land and its earthy work. But he did his own sudden and sad slipping away last year. E thinks about him everyday.

She’s been a gentle soul, sometimes to her own detriment. It takes her a long while to speak up if something bothers her, and when she does, it’s hard to be direct. But she’s learned. And even in the clatter of louder voices, she keeps trying to be heard.

It’s more important now, when other people are making decisions about her life. But she still errs on the side of kindness. It’s part of who she’s always been – thoughtful, choosing the gentler way.

She has filled up her life with tiny joys, with attention and small beloved things. She’s been a testament to love. I don’t think that will change. And wouldn’t that be a wondrous thing to say about ourselves, in the end? That we were a testament to love?