Remembering Luna

This is a post I first published March 2, 2011, about the grief I felt over the loss of our middle cat Luna. Her death was the impetus for me to star my ancestor blog. She was my spiritual companion on the physical world and she guides me in the spirit one still.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I almost died last year and what that means to me. I’ve been thinking about it while I’ve been working on my book over the experience of it. I found my thoughts drifting to grief, and as Luna’s anniversary is near, she came into my heart. I wanted to update my thoughts on the grief of her loss. Here’s the quick of it.

I didn’t realize it had been seven years. In two years, we will have lived without her as long as we lived with her. And that hurt. It stung me. It was a dagger in my chest. It hasn’t been that long. It’s impossible. But it’s true.

Our fourth cat Mara never knew her. Bella, the baby, was still our under-the-bed monster. Bella didn’t bloom and come into herself until after Luna died. And now Bella is gone. So it must be that long.

It still hurts.

What I said in 2011:

A Year Ago

Two days from now will mark a year to the day that we took our nine year-old cat to the emergency vet. She was listless, having difficulty breathing and hadn’t been eating or drinking. In three days she had lost enough weight to appear suddenly skeletal. At the vet she perched like a rabbit on the floor between us while we waited for test results, so normal that we thought we worried for nothing. Two hours and a drive across town later, she came back from an x-ray in serious distress. I stared at the abstract art they were calling the x-ray film, her body obscured by a black mass where intestine and stomach should have been. I marveled at the sheer size of the darkness that swam towards the boundaries of her tiny body.

I wish, in retrospect, that I could have carved time out of bedrock and stilled her pain for a few moments more so we could have said a proper goodbye. She was audibly gasping and her tongue was lolling out. The earth mother in me who is wiser than my heart knew what we had to do and my partner and I were in agreement. It took a moment. I held her head and her gaze in between my hands. I told her she was the best girl ever and that we loved her so very much with as much stability as I could muster. My partner cradled her body. In less than three seconds she was gone. It was the hardest moment of my life. But it was the most decisive. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about us.

We gifted Luna death. The separation of the spirit from the body is one of the hardest Mysteries for humans to work through and the way our society distances us from death leaves us little tools to help with the working of it.

Luna was the first Household Loss I have ever experienced- the kind of loss that affected and threw hiccups into my day-to-day routine. I didn’t realize until after she passed how much she spent my whole day moving through the house with me, talking to me, sleeping on me, so much so that my skin holds memories of her the way my heart does. There were hundreds of new firsts I was unprepared for, like the first time we didn’t fill her food bowl, the first time Luna didn’t come running for treats, the first holiday without her, the first of every night she has not slept curled against or on me… The first time we called her name out because we forgot she was dead.

We allowed ourselves to grieve when we were sad and to cry when we felt like we would break from the loss of her. By giving into those moments and not trying to repress them because maybe it wasn’t a good moment or might make someone else uncomfortable, they passed quickly and offered us moments of reprieve. We took turns helping the other two cats through their own grieving, walking with the baby while she wandered the house checking all of the places where Luna used to sleep. My animal grief spoke the same language as their animal grief and we were bonded in the loss, stronger than before.

I’ve had dreams of holding her and feeling her weight against me and being able to recall perfectly the sound of her purr and the way she used to wrap her paw around my index finger like a baby- and not let go of it. And then I wake to morning, reaching for her, and then I remember all over again.

I have seen her running in the house when the other cats were sleeping beside me. I have felt her crawl into my lap and settle down only there is no cat there. I cannot say if it is her spirit or if it is the energy current and echo of a pattern she had established within our home, or both. Spirit visitations can be cruel when they remind you that you can never touch them again. Not the way you used to, skin against skin. And yet, the gifts she gave us in her life have not been diminished in the grieving.

We are all animals. She was our family. Luna was my first experience in the joy, love and fear of being responsible for a defenseless living being. I discovered much of myself in raising her and accepting the bits of behavior that were her way of exploring the world, and not mine to control.

Missing Luna

We go on the best we can. We move forward and keep our hearts open. I will set her ashes out and light the ancestor shrine on her death day. I will set her food bowl out on the altar with her favorite treats and toys inside it. I will write down all the stories I remember about her in the journal I have been keeping throughout the year. I will take a moment to reflect on the changes in our lives since she died, without judgment or preference, and I will acknowledge the gratitude(s) this year has brought me. I will cry if I feel like crying and I will laugh because she gave me such great joy.

She worked us from the start, this shy, scared, trembling kitten who popped out of the cardboard carrier like a demon seed. As a kitten, she was a bloody hellion who dug up the chicks and hens from Sicily every day. She chewed on all the electrical cords and liked to hold her catnip mice under in the water bowl. 
I found her curled up sleeping in my closet one day, totally cute, just before realizing she had chewed all of the buttons she could reach off of all of my shirts. One time, she somehow drained a tall skinny glass of milk dry without knocking it over, disturbing the table around it or spilling a drop. And yet, she always ran through a doorway at the same moment I was and I stepped on her tail a bajillion times. Her totem animal was a Jackalope.

She was the first of the cats to catch a mouse and she could leap off the back of the chair and catch moths in mid-air. Apparently, moth-wing dust was a special delicacy. She liked to bathe in the winter mornings in the fishbowl of warm water we kept on the grate for moisture. She slept curled in a ball behind my knees under the covers. If I said no to something she wanted she would sass at me with this staccato back-talk and I loved her for it. Her favorite two toys were this little gingham fabric mouse and a pink bouncy ball with a rainbow around the middle.

She ate through my plastic bag of valerian before I understood it was like heroin to some cats. I found her rolling in it in my office, her eyes glazed over. Luna always helped me sew by holding down the pattern pieces for me. She hated the wood floors and dreamt of a house lined with wall-to-wall sleeping bags. She always knew when I needed a break from work and would come tell me so. She sat with me through all my meditations and often appeared walking beside me in them. She was afraid of ants and plastic bags. In the winter time, she liked to sleep behind the bathroom door, where the v-shape trapped the heat in. When she was really mad at me she’d cuff me along the jaw with her cupped paw, no claws, and then run away out of reach- boy did she have a mean hook.

We have little prisms hanging in the windows and Luna used to run back and forth over the bed chasing the little rainbows. When I think of her now, even though there is still sadness at the loss of her physical presence, I see her chasing flashing prisms across the quilt and I know she loved us as much as we loved her and that she was happy, and the pain of loss is well worth the price of the time we shared together.

Back to the present:

It hurts to read that again. We have lost two fur babies, two members of our familial pack. But they live on in the memories of this house. I wonder if we will carry them with us when we eventually move. Will it be hard to leave those memories behind? Will I find the strength to let them go? Will I always feel them with me?

Childhood Heroes

I wrote this the night Carrie Fisher died. But my heart hurt too much to finish it. When her mother, Debbie Reynolds, died the next day, I couldn’t put my thoughts to words. So I waited until mother and daughter were laid to rest and put to peace. My heart is broken due to the passing of Carrie Fisher. She was only sixty years old.

           

I remember when George Harrison died in 2001. As soon as I heard the news I called my dad. I knew he would be upset at the passing of one of his heroes. Of course he was. I grew up knowing how the Beatles impacted his young life and shaped his musical tastes. They played the soundtrack of his world. I didn’t feel grief then, but I had sympathy. I knew that someday I would lose a hero.

It’s another type of rite of passage. It’s another moment that changes us. Maybe people think it’s silly that I should grieve for a celebrity. Especially one I never knew and, sadly, never got to meet. I know Carrie was more than a space princess. She was a fierce warrior for mental health awareness and her openness later in her life about her struggles endeared her further to me. She was a strong writer with a quick wit and a sharp tongue- honest to a tooth. She was funny and crass.

My gateway to Carrie Fisher was Star Wars. Princess Leia was my first idol. She’s been with me my whole life. As a child I often faced difficult dilemmas with the question, what would Leia do? But that character was just words on paper until Carrie brought them to life. And she did.

I am an obsessed Star Wars fan who read all of the (now non-canon) books outside of the movies. And every book I read, when Leia spoke, it was Carrie’s voice I heard in my head. It was her eye rolls and eyebrow raises I saw in my visualizations. 

Like a lot of fans, I had all the Princess Leia action figures as a kid and I still have most of them. I played with them liberally, and often all at once. I gave each version of Leia its own personality. Bespin Leia was the most refined and princess-like while Hoth Leia was the tomboy. Endor Leia was the leader/soldier who made all the decisions and Boushh Leia was the I-don’t-follow-orders badass. The original Leia was always my every person, the Dorothy/Alice/Wendy character. In my play they were sisters, navigating the world together.

Early on my favorite was Hoth Leia. I thought her hair was pretty and I liked her outfit. I liked her so much I took her to school for show and tell. My mom told me to keep her in my bag but I didn’t. I lost her in the snow by the mailbox a block away from my house. I was young and foolish enough to wait until the snow melted, assuming I would find her again. I never did, but a decade later, my dad surprised me with a loose version of her he found at a toy show.

I still have her.

My overall favorite by far was Bounty Hunter Leia, dressed as Boushh. I loved her because she was badass. She snuck into Jabba’s Palace and freed Han Solo. For the first time in my young life I watched a Princess save the Rogue Pirate.

It changed my world.

There’s a good book- though no longer canon- called Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry, which takes place immediately preceding Return of the Jedi, following the lengths Leia and Chewbacca went to in order to find and save Han.

Tattoine Ghost by Troy Denning was another good one for me. It follows Leia as she wrestles with the truth of who her father was as she visits other planets, trying to hold the pieces together after the fall of the Emperor.

There are dozens of books of the saga of Han and Leia (and everyone else) including some massive heartache for both of them, and how they struggle through that… together. When the books were dismissed as non-canon before The Force Awakens was released, it was hard for me. I lived the literary timeline with and through them and it got fairly brutal for our heroes. I was in it with them.

But, I am also a Doctor Who fan and I like all things timey-wimey, so a new storyline where some beloved characters are still alive but other ones never existed… I came to terms with it. I can love both versions. It’s more Star Wars world and what can be bad about that?

Last year, along with millions of others, I watched Carrie Fisher breathe new life into Leia, in a new chapter of Star Wars where we learned what happened after Return of the Jedi. I was with her journey, with her heartache. To revisit with my idol in her later years felt like a homecoming. As someone of middle-age, it felt sadly reassuring to find that they had destroyed two Death Stars and saved the Republic, but not even the Princess was assured a happy ending.

After the movie came out I picked up the book Bloodline by Claudia Gray at the local library. It takes place in the new canon-world, between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. It’s Leia-heavy and layered. A lot of the non-canon books brush Leia off as the Princess, the Senator, the Leader of the Republic… always some kind of figurehead, stuck in her position (although in the New Jedi Order series, she trains to earn her own lightsaber). But Bloodline understands Leia’s place in the Star Wars Universe.

She was the bravery and the heart of the Rebellion.

I know that the death of Carrie Fisher doesn’t mean the end of Princess Leia. But it’s the death of her face and her voice and that matters. Leia’s legacy will outlive us all, for a while anyway. I will spend my days grateful to Carrie for gifting me with Leia. I wish her family space to grieve and peace when they find it.

Carrie Fisher herself said, “I like Princess Leia. I like how she handles things. I like how she treats people. She tells the truth. She, you know, gets what she wants done. I don’t have real problem with Princess Leia. I’ve sort of melded with her over time.” May the force be with them both.

To Those Grieving a Recent Loss

All Hallows is upon us. Those sensitive to Spirit will feel the winds opening new doorways, and swiftly stirring up the ways between. All those whose hearts are sorrowed by loss, all of you will feel it, too. You may feel a presence beside you, or sense one walking through your kitchen. You may *know* that someone is in your bathroom and with the same surety, know that if you go look, it will be empty.

I understand why these moments scare you, when your heart is still deep in grief, still hoping somewhere beneath the rationality, that your loved one *will* be there one of these times. Anything less is a betrayal. Every time.

It might also feel like betrayal when I ask you not to look for your loved ones in those shadows. Do not will them to come forth. Do not beg them to appear. Not this year. Not this season.

Those who have recently died are in transition.

I believe there is more to us than these physical bodies. I believe there is an afterlife for whatever that is. I’ve said that before. Your recently lost loved one may choose to appear to you. But don’t let books and movies steer your heart. In my experience that choice is uncommon so soon. It may be theirs. But leave that to them. Grieve for them but do not call them to you.

I encourage you to light candles and burn incense. Crack a window and call to your ancestors. Call them by name if you know them. Call to the lines you know, call only to those who wish you well. Call them to sit beside you this season. Call them to sit with you on Hallows night.

Do not sit spiritually alone in this grief. Your ancestors have all known loss. Some of them have sat where you sit. They know that secret, marring hole inside of you. Ask them to find and welcome your loved one. Ask them to watch over you in your sorrow.

Sit with your ancestors and cry your heart dry.

There is no time limit to grief. It’s a silly concept. The loss never goes away. It never undoes. You must be brave and find the strength to bear knowing that, for every second you keep living, the possibility of them being involved in it has been removed. That’s tremendously hard and you’ll mostly make it up as you go along.

For now, this Samhain, these next few weeks and months, leave your lost loved ones to rest. Lean into your ancestors, lean into the living. 

Beauty in Grief

Grief. It welcomes itself into your life in multiple occasions of loss: jobs, homes, health, pets, loved ones.

I feel it now, even though the sun is shining outside of my office window. I am sitting in my chair typing, resting my damaged legs after a half hour of standing still. I could feel grief over the change in my health, and I do. But staring at the sun, my heart is sore because I miss my Grandpa.

He died right after the spring equinox. He was a bright light in my heart and the loss of him still hurts. But not as much. Not as sharply, which is normal. It's been over a decade now. It hardly seems possible.

It was gloomy the day he died, and cold still. But you could feel the change of season in the air. The day we buried him, the sun was bright and warm. He would have loved it. I didn't feel that way at the time, but I see that now. Then, I was grieving.

Grief is dark. It's smothering and it eats the oxygen from the air. It manipulates gravity until every push and pull of your muscles is a battle you don't want to win.

Grief is a tool of change and transition. It serves a purpose. Something in our lives has altered incredibly and will never be the same. Grief steals in and colors our world to better sharpen the contrast between what has changed and what remains the same. It reminds us so that our brains can't lie to us. Otherwise it would.

So when I look at the sun on a warming spring day, and my heart hurts, it is a reminder that my Grandpa isn't here to see that sun. But then I think about him. About him. Not the loss of him, but about the life he lived and the people he loved and those who loved him in return.

I tell his stories, about how he used to tell us he made dessert, and even boxed it up special, just for us. For years I thought he made the best coffee cakes, and just put them in Sara Lee boxes. I really did. And he almost had me until he said he grew a cantaloupe in one day... and the whole family thought I had known all along that he was joking about his baking skills.

I tell his stories, and they make me smile. Grief blankets the heartbreak so that it's bearable. And on the other side of it, the light becomes a welcome sight again. Green shoots poke their way out of the warming earth. Flowers bloom and birds return. So do the memories.

What is remembered, lives.

Compassion for Those in Grief

When my Uncle died, one of my family members took the day off of work to attend his funeral. She didn’t get paid for it, which I understand. But she got docked for it. They took money from her paycheck- but, if they weren’t paying her, they weren’t losing money. So it feels more like she got punished for having a death in the family.

I have a problem with that. I have a general problem with the way business handles death in general. The list of how many days employees get off for each different variation of family member is unreal to me. Like someone in a room can decide how much time a parent, grandparent, child, or uncle is worth. For you. I am far closer to a few of my friends, my adopted family, than some of my blood family. If my best friend were to die it would be like the loss of a parent or partner. But as far as a workplace is concerned, he could mean nothing to me.

When my grandmother died, I was too young to know that my workplace didn’t have to give me the time I wanted off. I called my boss at home and told him I was going to my hometown to be with my family, that I didn’t know what the arrangements were, or when I was coming back. I told him that I would let him know. I was gone for a week. I could have lost my job. I wouldn’t have cared. Nothing was more important to me than that time with my family. They needed it. I needed it.

Death is never convenient. It is never a good time. Even if you expect death will come soon, you are never prepared when it does.

There’s been another death in our family. My Great-Aunt Carol, my Grandma’s younger sister, recently passed. It’s hard to say, but it’s true, that she is in a generation where death is common visitor, for my age group. It doesn’t make it easier. I hadn’t seen her in decades. It doesn’t make it easy.

My world has changed again. That sphere of loved ones surrounding me in the grandparent generation has shrunk again. My outer sphere of living family members has shrunk. My ancestral spirit world has grown. Life changes. Life goes on. Somewhere.

I’m good at grief now, but it wasn’t always so. I was five or six when my first friend died. She was crossing the road to get to the mail when she was hit by a semi truck. Then my Grandpa, a friend from dance class, a friend in high school, my Great-Grandma, etc. All before I considered myself an adult. There have been at least fifty since then.

I didn’t handle grief well as a young person. I was still trying to understand what death meant other than I would never see them again. But even if you know how to handle it, it doesn’t mean you will when it actually happens. I’ve watched my parents suffer their own personal losses, the deep aching ones I have yet to experience. I know what lies ahead for me. Not how it will be for me, but that it will be.

So, knowing that we are, or will someday be in the space of grieving, what can we do when other people in our lives are grieving a loss we don’t feel? We can have compassion for our grieving friends and give them the space they need. If you can be there for them when they need to vent, sit in silence, or have a cup of tea, even better. Isn’t that what you would want for yourself?

If we disagree with how our friends grieve, or we feel the need to judge how long it’s taking them, we can keep our mouths shut. It’s the sweetest kindness when those we love are in their dark places. It’s a journey they have to take in order to find their way forward.

And if we can’t be there for them, if we can’t watch, if it pokes places we fear to look into, we have the choice to walk away. And if we are the grieving party and it’s been multiple years and we still sit in our bathrobes on birthdays and anniversaries, we have to accept that not everyone can take that journey with us. We can’t be angry at others for needing to move on before we’re ready.

It’s okay if you’re not ready yet. But honestly, you’ll never be ready. Sometimes you just have to do it. Moving on doesn’t mean letting go or forgetting. It’s not disrespectful. I know that step is scary- worrying that you’re replacing the loved one, worrying that if you move on, or that you’ll forget them. We all worry about that. But think about the depth of your grief. How could you ever forget a love that deep?

While you are grieving you are edgewalking between two worlds. The one in which nothing changes and the one in which everything does. You, on the inside, feel more strongly the ways in which everything has changed. While your friends are grieving they are edgewalking between two worlds. You, on the outside, are imbedded in the world that doesn’t change. It is your friends who suddenly fall out of sync.

All those who have lost will recognize the foreign journey the grievers travel, but they will not have the answers for the griever as to how to traverse that new terrain- it terraforms itself into individual experiences for each griever. But those who have been there will be able to be trail markers and touchstones, witnesses to the journey. Because they know that someday, we will all come out the other side.

Thank you for being a light in my life Aunt Carol. 

A Family Loss

Death.

It’s July, and for a lot of Americans that means family vacations, gardens, and sunshine. A few of my friends have delivered new life into the world and many of my friends have recently had to say goodbye to loved ones. Death doesn’t care if we would rather be on vacation. My Uncle Dave passed away Friday morning, after battling leukemia. He died surrounded by family at Hospice.

He was the funny one, we would say as children, while trying to remember the names of all our aunts and uncles. Uncle Dave was the one who always knelt down to our level so he could better talk to us like we were little people with our own likes and dislikes. Children are used to being hugged and shooed off to play. At the holidays there were seven siblings and their spouses as well as nine (or so, depending on the year) cousins running about. There’s an invisibility that comes with being part of a pack. But Uncle Dave always saw us. And he was funny, whether cracking jokes, stealing noses, or acting foolish, he liked to hear us laugh.

When I saw him at Christmas, we had one of those deep conversations like people do, where we knew it could be the last time, but fervently hoped it wouldn’t be, swaying around the actual words. He told me stories about his time in the Navy, on a ship in the water near Cuba during the missile crisis. He told me that he would have made the Navy his career, if he’d also been able to have his family. But he chose family, and he never regretted it. He could never look at his kids or grandkids without beaming and losing words for the love they gave him.

Many, many people are going to miss him terribly. For more about my uncle's life you can read his obituary here.

Change.

There are many circles orbiting my world, like the rings of Saturn. Each circle is another group of living loved ones, and together we create the galaxy, my universe. But from my perspective, they orbit around me, separate, but never far. My grandparent circle has greatly diminished as the years have passed. It is no longer solid. I can see a time where that ring will fade, when there is no one left alive to lose.

The circle that represents my aunts and uncles has always been strong and vibrant. My parents exist in that circle, as well as one of their own. Everything changes now. My Uncle Dave is the first loss from that ring. Its edge is no longer sharply defined and the color will grow diffuse as more loss comes. I am one step closer to the reality that more death will come. Mortality feels very real.

He was not just my uncle. He was my father’s brother, they were boys together. He was my cousins’ father, the man who raised them as my father raised me. And my heart fills with loss. My father’s loss. My aunt’s loss.

Prayer.

My family is gathering to pay their respects and lay his vessel to rest. I cannot be there with them, and am shoring up responsibilities so that I can go and be with them soon, which is difficult considering that my heart and thoughts are miles away. So I focus my heart and I do what I can from my office. At my ancestor altar, I call to the seven generations of my uncle’s ancestors.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier; of Treadwell, Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier; of Treadwell, Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston, of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier, of Treadwell; Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond; of Skiff, Arnold, Andrews, Palmer, Coleman, Wright, Parker, Dow, Bailey, Erkells, and Richmond.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston, of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier, of Treadwell; Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond; of Skiff, Arnold, Andrews, Palmer, Coleman, Wright, Parker, Dow, Bailey, Erkells, and Richmond; of Hatch, Brooks, Luther, Townsend, Van Deusen, Lyon, Porter, Washburn, Pearson, Davis, Fowle, Zabriskie, Blackmer, and Caswell.

May my uncle’s spirit be at peace and at rest.

May the ancestors watch over and comfort the living he left behind.

I Choose Peace

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the lives taken in Charleston, South Carolina. For the first time, I haven’t cared to read about the shooter’s background, whether or not he had a rough childhood, or how he learned to hate. I have no pithy statements. My heart is too heavy. Knowing his specific circumstances won’t revive the dead.

I thought differently a year ago when I decided to read Eliot Rodgers’ one-hundred and forty plus page manifesto last May. I’ll never get the hour of horror back as I kept saying, “This can’t get any worse.” What I took away from it was he was wrong in the head. Not mentally ill wrong. He believed he was entitled to certain things, simply because he was a man. And I really mean, entitled due to the fact that he was born. When he couldn’t have the things he felt entitled to (i.e. other people), he got angry and took it out on the world.

He didn’t know what he was doing was wrong because he didn’t believe it was wrong. And that’s what happened, again. So what do you do with people who don’t believe racism or sexism is wrong? What do we do with people who are angry at the world because it doesn’t exist the way they think it should? In my opinion, that is not mental illness.

I no longer believe knowing everything about what the shooter was thinking will give us any insight to help stop the next act of senseless violence. I am certain there will be more. [I agree with Jon Stewart, that this wasn’t a tragedy. This was an act of American terrorism.] There will always be circumstances and explanations. There will always be a “reason” that makes sense to no one but the murderer. And in the end, we will still be left with the loss and grief.

Nine precious lives were snuffed out, in their sacred space, in their temple. And that is where my heart is, with the loss of those lives and the realization that a twenty-one year old thought nothing of taking them. One young man stepped into his place in the world as an adult by taking nine lives. It boggles my brain, like I don’t even understand the words I’m writing out. They stretch out and twist in my gut and I am wary of others who display violent anger.

Anger isn’t a mental illness. Racism isn’t a mental illness. Excusing a murderer as mentally ill because they were angry is a disservice to the people who handle their anger every day. In our culture anger is easy, and we all work our way to the place of why we need to handle our own anger and stop making it anyone else’s problem.

I understand anger. I used to have an angry heart, like anger-ball, explodes-in-milliseconds heart. Beneath that I wanted peace, but I was so broken by my experiences in the world I thought it was impossible. I didn’t want to be angry. It was eating me up from the inside and it was infecting my relationships.

I had a small awareness that I was looking at the world and waiting for it to make itself better for me, so that my sensitive soul could fit in it. I didn’t realize that if I wanted the world to be a more peaceful place, I needed to feed it love, not fear. I needed to feed it peace, not hate. I needed to feed the world peace.

You can change your wiring. You can change your emotional responses to stimulation. It’s not easy but I’ve done it. The trick is you don’t let go of your anger and fill it with something else (like reparations or justice). It isn’t a give and take. You transform that anger into something new. You can’t expect to receive anything in the place of letting it go. You don’t let it go. You change it.

It doesn’t make being in the world-as-it-is easier, but the more I release my anger, the more I sink into our interconnectedness. The more I sink in, the more I see every life as the same, the more kindness I have for strangers. After all, if I want to live according to my beliefs, I have to accept that everyone else I see does, too. The only belief I think we must all share is that we cannot harm other living beings.

These shooters, these American terrorists, are disconnected from that web. They don’t see everyone as the same. They don’t give everyone the same worth. But we do. We can. And it starts with feeding the world our kindness, patience, and peaceful hearts, and allowing that to heal our angry, vengeful, anxious hearts, so that we may walk the earth leaving peace in our wake. Wakes ripple outward.

When faced with anger or love, I choose love. When faced with violence or peace, I choose peace. When faced with teachable moments, I speak up to diffuse angry moments before they can escalate.

I have had violence and rage directed at me. I do not want to be the cause of that pain and grief in anyone else’s life. When I anger, I feed it down to the earth through the soles of my feet, not out into the air with my words and breath.

“Sometimes we wait for others and think that Martin Luther should raise among us and Nelson Mandela should raise among us and speak up for us but we never realize that they are normal humans like us and if we step forward we can also bring change just like them.”  ~Malala Yousafzai, 17, Nobel Peace Prize winner from Pakistan

Ancestor-Walking Beneath the Stars

Photo of the labyrinth I walked by Amy, 2015.

The best thing about a labyrinth is that it’s a physical meditation of your body in motion as you journey internally. You can walk the same labyrinth every day and feel like each day is a new journey. Sometimes I use the labyrinth as a means to petition my ancestors, and the seven-circuit labyrinth is my favorite.

I recently attended a candle-lit labyrinth on the beach, beneath a starry sky, organized by a woman I have had the great pleasure to study with and work with, Tracy Andryc, a Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator. I emerged from the woods after leading an Evening Devotional in the Ancestor Shrine and travelled across the sand, bringing my ancestors with me. I stepped into the labyrinth with a purpose.

As I put each foot in front of the other in the first circuit, I allowed myself to sink deeper into the earth. I sank down through the layer we trod on, through the layer the burrowing animals and insects live in, through the layer where the bones and ashes of our dead are buried. At this layer, I began to call to them.

In the second track I called to my grandparents, to the four who have crossed over, two of whom I knew, beloved to me. I thought they would live forever. Specifically, I called on my father’s father. I have one solid memory of him before his death when I was seven. And I called on my father’s mother, who died when he was a young boy. I focused my thoughts on them, and the other Rustons and Eatons in their lines.

In the third track I opened to my eight great-grandparents, to the Rustons and the Wickers, the Eatons and the Smiths.

Then I reached out to my sixteen 2x great-grandparents on the fourth turn, those who saw the Civil War and the beginning of the new century, the Rustons and Irelands, Wickers and Whitchers, the Eatons and Tenneys, Smiths and Dutchers.

In the shortest track of the labyrinth I called in my thirty-two 3x great-grandparents, those who forged new wildernesses in a newer land, the Rustons and Richardsons, Irelands and Lentons, Wickers and Lusks, Whitchers and Loziers, the Eatons and Treadwells, Tenneys and Targees, Smiths and Sears, Dutchers and Birds.

In the sixth circuit, I felt my sixty-four 4x great-grandparents join me, the spirit door wide open. The Rustons, Richardsons, Irelands, Lentons and Wilsons, Wickers and Morgans, Lusks, Whitchers/Whittiers and Kittredges, DeLoziers and Raymonds, the Eatons and Goulds, Treadwells, Tenneys, Targees and Smiths, Sears and Dubois’, Dutchers and Feagles, Birds and Marshes… and those lines unknown.

On the last path, I opened to all one-hundred and twenty-five of my 5x great-grandparents. The Rustons, Richardsons, Irelands, Lentons and Wrights, Wilsons, Wickers and Parkers, Morgans, Lusks, Whittiers and Dows, Kittredges and Baileys, DeLoziers and Erkells, Raymonds and Richmonds, the Eatons and Skiffs, Goulds and Arnolds, Treadwells, Tenneys and Darbys, Targees and Tourgees, Smiths, Sears and Andrews, Dubois’, Dutchers and Palmers, Feagles, Birds and Colemans, Marshes… and those lines unknown.

I was at a threshold, crossing over with two-hundred and fifty-four ancestors beside and behind me, the collective spirits of the first seven generations of my family tree. I made two hundred and fifty-five. I walked in ancestral fire. At the center there was a door. I am the door. In the center and called my father’s parents into the center of labyrinth.

They came immediately, young together in my vision, holding a baby made of light. I had meant to petition them to be with the family, to watch over my uncle, their son. I was prepared to sweat through the work and will them in from the ether, and I laughed to find them waiting. They were already holding him, watching over him, encircling him in love and healing light.

Ruth looked at me. Ruth, the grandmother whose line I take after genetically, the grandmother I never knew. Her face was warm and full of love and gratitude. Her eyes smiled. I saw myself, and my sister, my father and my uncle dancing in her face.

But when she smiled at me, I saw her. Only her. In the center of the labyrinth I felt the love of a woman I couldn’t know. Death is not the end.

Mark and Ruth smiled at me. The baby in their arms clapped his hands in something akin to original joy. I knew he was being watched over and I felt overwhelming peace and love fill my heart. I stepped out of the center and stared up into the sky, at the stars in the mountains, dusted across the black expanse and I cried, tears of joy and tears of release.

I walked out of the labyrinth lighter, crossing paths with other journeyers. With each step I took I thanked my ancestors for walking with me. And I know they are with me in all the moments of my life.

*

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”  ~Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

For more on Tracy Andryc's work, visit One Path Labyrinth here!

Imminent Death

I wasn’t sure what to call this article. That sounded so urgent, but it’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about those times in your life when death knocks. When you know to expect it… soon, and you have a little push time until it arrives. Where “soon” is the closest you can get to any certainty.

I’m packing for an annual retreat in the mountains, away from technology, away from traffic, and away from my senile, dying 20 year-old cat. It’s not that a vet has told us she’s dying. She’s 20 years old. That’s like, 96 in human years. She’s looking tired and worn. She sleeps twenty hours a day and walks stiffly through the house. We don’t know when, but we know it’s coming, likely sooner, rather than later.

I have a ritual now, before I leave overnight to go anywhere. I snuggle my cat, now affectionately called Grams, in a blanket and I cradle her in my lap. I listen to the familiar heavy-motor purr, the only thing that hasn’t faded. From just one touch of my finger she could run for hours, without breaking. I often woke in the night, distressed that something was different- only to discover that my kitty sound-machine had finally stopped purring.

And in my ritual, I listen to her purr. I tell her how much I love her. I tell her how lucky we were that she picked us in that winter storm in Fredonia. I tell her how happy she has made us. I listen as her purr turns to chirp as she headbutts my elbow crook. I listen to her chirp turn to chirrup turn to coo as she goes limp with bliss in my lap.

I use the special singsong voice she loves most. And then I sing to her, “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac. My cat trills a special note she only uses when I sing. And I sit with my beloved friend, who has been in my life for seventeen years. The things she has seen no one else knows. The ways we have changed, only she has witnessed.

I know this. I hold her. I feel sorrow for what is coming. And I feed that sorrow my love. In that last moment, whether I am with her or whether I am away on retreat somewhere, I know I will not have regret, because I told her how I felt and I showed her what she meant. She will know how much I loved her, she will feel how grateful I was for her, and she will remember the vibrations of my chest on her muscles as I sang sweet words to her:

“For you, there will be no crying.

For you, the sun will be shining.

And I feel that when I’m with you, it’s all right.

I know it’s all right…”

I could talk about my uncle, the first of my father’s siblings to be gravely ill. I could talk about his fight that he’s winning and losing. I could say that I am afraid I won’t see him again, and I know that’s why we had the conversation we had at Christmas. Because he might not see me again, and he didn’t want to leave things unsaid.

In that moment, it broke my heart. I wanted to push him away. I didn’t want him to say the words because to me words are magic. But this is my work. This is what I do. So I stood and I listened, overwhelmed with gratitude to be witness to his life, to stories he’d never told anyone else. To be gifted a shared intimacy that will last longer than this flesh.

I would talk about it more but I am sensitive to those loved ones who may not want to hear the words, he is dying. He is, right now. But he could get better. But right now, he’s not. But I get it. Words are magic. To act as if he is dying, to acknowledge it so that loved ones can prepare for its arrival, is as if to invite it in sooner. As if you are lighting a beacon. As if saying you acknowledge you will die, sooner than later, is the same thing as saying “I’m ready.”

But what walled city saw the fleet of ships arriving with weapons drawn and said, “I’m ready to fall?”

Are we ever ready? I snuggle my cat close to me. I tell her it’s all right. It’s all right if she hangs out with her moments of dementia for more years. It’s all right if I wake up tomorrow and she’s gone. It’s all right if she passes while we’re away. As long as she knows we love her and what an important part of our family she is, will always be.

I think of my uncle, the funny one, and I feel bad saying he’s sick. As if somehow I am unweaving any healing work he is undergoing to get better. I pray to my Grandpa Mark and Grandma Ruth and ask them to watch over my uncle every morning, to give him as much life as he has in him. I ask them to watch over their other children as they deal with their varying levels of grief over the idea that, eventually, one of them will be the first to die.

I pray to my cats that have crossed over, Luna and Bella, and ask them to watch over Zami, and to welcome her across when she is ready to take that journey.

May we live each day with our eyes open.

May we know the light and the darkness,

and may we fear neither.

May we learn to feed the shadow with light.

May we know joy and sadness.

May we feed our sorrow with love.

May we live without regret.

May those we love know our hearts.

May our last moments be good moments.

May our last words be words of love.

The Eulogy I Wish I’d Given

Grandpa Dick and Grandma Donna's wedding day.

When my Grandpa passed, I didn’t know what his spiritual notions were. He was raised Roman Catholic and we all attended Sunday mass with my Great-Grandma Elsie when she visited for the summer… but I spent enough Sundays with Grandpa to know he didn’t attend church regularly. So, when he died, we requested a simple, generic service performed by the minister attached to the funeral home.

It was humorous. The poor retired minister was so excited to be behind a podium again that he threw every bible story he could into discussing death, including Jonah and the Whale. Yet he couldn’t keep my Grandpa’s name straight. The minister meant well, but he lost me when he started talking about how death was like the small white dead skin cells that fell out of his socks at night. I’m sure everyone behind me thought my silent laughter resembled tears. I hope my Grandpa was amused at the absurdity, too.

I was so overwhelmed with the loss, I didn’t think about getting up to speak. It never crossed my mind that I would look back later and wish the service had been more personal, more about my Grandpa. He was the reason we were all there. One of my cousins stood up to speak to what a wonderful and caring man he was. I wish I had thought to, been I fumble for live words enough, and my grief was so strong… we were just trying to get through it; the strange service held behind stranger walls.

Richard James Riddle

December 23, 1931 – March 25, 2004

My first Christmas, generation portrait.

My Grandpa was everything to me. He was every holiday meal, every Saturday lunch. He would come over at noon on the dot and teasingly ask me, “What’s for lunch today?” and then feign surprise when I answered with the same statement every week; bologna, cheese, mustard and potato chip (salt and vinegar was the best flavor to add to the combination).

He and my mom would sit in the kitchen together, the only time the smell of coffee permeated our house. He had his own stash in our cupboard, waiting for his weekly visit. I loved listening to them discuss the world, the way it worked. I loved the way they talked their way into hope. My Grandpa tried the best he could to see the bright end of things. And if there wasn’t one, well, we’d get through it.

When I was a little girl, I remember lots of summer afternoons at their house, playing in the cool basement and watching Grandma and Grandpa work their garden in the back yard, Grandma in her terrycloth one-piece and Grandpa in his shorts and sunglasses. In my memory they are summer, fresh vegetables and warm afternoons filled with the fragrant smell of roses. They were the spirit of growing things.

We would often have family dinners together and I believed my Grandpa to be an accomplished baker. Grandma cooked dinner and Grandpa cooked dessert. After each meal he would pull out his latest creation and go on about how he had even put it in a special box that he found, to make it nice for us. I was a bit innocent as a child and didn’t notice what a handy coincidence it was that he happened to have a Sara Lee Coffee Cake box the same day he made us one.

One night, he pulled out a cantaloupe and said he had grown it in one day, just for us. It took me a second. And I remember being afraid to contradict him, assuming I was wrong, because he would know, right? I told him matter-of-factly that cantaloupes couldn’t be grown in one day. It is the first memory I have of recognizing that the impish twinkle in his eye meant he was teasing or pulling my leg. There was a pause as the grown-ups realized I had accepted his stories all along, and there was some well-earned laughter at my expense. Thanks to Grandpa and his kitchen skills, one of my favorite desserts is a quarter slice of cantaloupe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream sitting in it.

After dinner the family would play Scat together. Grandpa would lend my siblings and me pennies from the jar on his dresser. At the end of the night, we would pay him back the pennies we’d started with, if we had any left. But the rest of our winnings were ours.

I called my Grandpa’s mom, Elsie, Grandma-from-Florida because I thought it was shorter than Great-Grandma. I remember forming that logic in my head. She spent her summers with my family and each year we would take the obligatory generational photo while she was visiting; Great-Grandma, Grandpa, mom, me and my siblings. Grandpa adored his mom- he’d call her “ma” with a smile on his face- as did everyone who knew her.

We spent some of those summer days at the Riddle cottage in Olcott on Lake Ontario. There was so much laughter, so much love and togetherness. I know it’s possible to be surrounded by joy and love, which is the greatest gift my family gave me. It’s the greatest gift my Grandpa gave me, loving me for who I was and as I was. I won’t settle for less than that, looking for the spirit of my Grandfather in the hearts of the people I meet.

Grandpa Dick had a beautiful Cadillac I loved riding in. Sometimes when we stayed overnight, he’d take us to his favorite diner for breakfast in the Caddy. All of the waitresses at the diner knew him. He would happily introduce us and the women would go on about how much he talked about us.

My entire life, I knew that my Grandpa loved me, even when he wasn’t with me. It’s a thing we take for granted sometimes, those relationships we build. Even now, a decade after his death, that love means everything to me.

When his cancer returned, I went home to spend time with him. I asked him for stories about his parents, pushing through the awkward moment where we both knew I was asking him because he was dying… because he might not recover and then there would be no answers. I picked up his prescriptions and took him some groceries one night, after copying some old family photos. That was the last night I saw him conscious and aware. And I learned that we shared a long-time favorite flavor of ice cream- black raspberry. I’ll never forget that last hug, just as strong and firm as every other hug he had ever given me.

There are so many of them, too many to ever count.

He was every Christmas morning, all of my life. I was 27 the last Christmas we had together. My nieces were opening their presents and the youngest said “Thank you, Great-Grandpa!” To which the middle child said, “Don’t call him that. It’s rude!” My Grandpa smiled and said, “Why? That’s what I am.”

And that’s who he was.

Outside his parent's store.

Richard James Riddle was born in 1931 in Lockport, New York. He had a brother and a sister. His parents owned a small general store and his father worked at the local Radiator factory. He was a young boy when World War II began and he later spent some time in the Navy. He was married twice, had one daughter, and three step-children. His second wife, my Grandma Donna, was the love of his life. He outlived her by two years. They loved to travel. They loved to gamble. They either won or broke even at the tables. They brought the fortune and sunshine with them when they travelled.

He was the father of my mother, and father to my aunt and uncles. He became a father to my own, and to all of their friends who became my family. My life is peppered with stories of him dropping in on my mother’s friends and helping them out when they were in need. At the end of his life he was a good friend to one of my favorite high school teachers, who lived a stone’s throw away from him after he moved.

I can see the ripple of his time on this earth stretching out in the wake of his loss. It ripples still. I feel the joy he taught me when the sun warms my skin. And when I sit quietly in the woods, I can hear the sound of his voice in the wind as it blows through the trees. He lives on in my stories and in the memories of those who loved him.

What is remembered, lives.

What is remembered never dies.

[Revamped post originally published March 14, 2012.]

To Love What is Mortal

Bella the Bearcat  April 1, 2002 – June 11, 2013

 I’m not sure what it is about the first anniversary of a death that weighs so heavy. One year. It’s not like I stare at the calendar and count the days down. It’s more like the day comes around, and life has carried on, but there is a niggling reminder in my brain that the date is important. Only I am not sure why. Then, when I remember, it’s always different, and yet always the same…

Suddenly I remember exactly where I was, how the room smelled, how my heart felt. I remember sitting on the floor of my office with Bella, willing her to lift her head and watching her try to roll her eyes to meet mine instead, holding my partner’s hand. We both remember the moment we knew what was being asked of us. One year ago, today.

Bella wasn’t ready. We weren’t ready. But death and time didn’t much care. It was the right thing that we did, because we loved her.

Yesterday I found a bit that I wrote before we made the phone call last year: For the last two days I have seen small flashes of light flitting about my field of vision. I didn’t think anything of them until this morning. Last week, when my father had unexpected surgery, I prayed hard to our ancestors to see him through it all right. I threw a door open to Spirit. When I saw my cat this morning, my baby, I saw those flashes of light surrounding her and I knew deep down in my gut that something was wrong. As I type this, she is dying. You can see it in the absence of her gaze and the listless limpness of her lounging. She is not in pain. She is not in distress but her light in this world is dying none the less. And we are watching, sitting death side with her. We put on her favorite cello music and brushed her with her favorite soft bristle brush for as long as she wanted. We tempted her with soft food, and she ate some, but not all… which is telling.

And then I couldn’t write anymore. All of the words that wanted to come out were a shadow of what I was experiencing. Again.

For every pic in focus, I have 20 blurry ones.

I remember how she felt beneath my hand. How she was bristley, not soft. When she was a kitten, she slept across my throat at night, her tiny breath dancing against my chin and neck. I raised her, taught her, watched her grow. The thudding slap of her feet against the floor as she stomped around the house always echoed. She did not see well and was easily startled into straight-up-in-the-air armadillo mode. It hurt her feelings when we laughed, which we did, and she’d cry/whine at us in response before hiding from whatever scared her in my lap. I was her wooby. I can recall with perfect clarity the sound of her voice. I used to tease her, calling her cranking cries “dulcet tones”. She understood sarcasm. She wasn’t terribly bright or brave, but she was the sweetest friend. And I know that she will always live in my heart. I know because I hold Luna there, too, who died three years before Bella.

I still call out for her. I look up when I see her ghost out of the corner of my eye and for a moment, I forget she is not corporeal. I live for the nights she visits my dreams and I can smell and feel her again. I think of us as a four cat household, even though two are gone. So, I guess, in reality, death has not removed them from my family. Death did not remove her from my heart.

We are a four cat family. Love adds. Love multiplied my family into something greater than it was. It is that awareness Bella gifted us with in her death. More than the sorrow and the loss and the tears I shed while writing this, wishing I could hold her one more time… more than the sadness, today I feel that love.

What I remember about that day now is the strength I found to step outside of my selfish human heart and let her go. To answer the vet when they asked the question of why we were putting her to sleep. I remember the strength I found to hold her head and her gaze as she died, so the last thing she saw was the love on my face for her. The last words she heard were us telling her what a good girl she was and how much we loved her.

I remember how strong my arms were when I picked her dead body up afterwards. She was still warm and yet the feel of her was gone. We stood at the window and watched the murder of crows in the field, the ones who came to shepherd her transition. I remember how hard it was to just lay her body down and walk away from it, knowing I would never hold her again, my hand hesitating on the door before I closed it shut behind me.

Love multiplies. At night now, I tell Mara stories about the sisters she didn’t get to know. I tell her how much it meant to us that she picked us, how heart-lifting her appearance in our lives was. And I think I understand now, what it means to know that neither Zami or Mara will be with us forever. There are no guarantees.

I could feel angry at the losses of Luna and Bella at such young ages and barricade my heart against such sadness again. I could. I could do that. But I can’t.

I think I’d rather be grateful for the time our lost friends gave me. I’d rather carry that gratitude into continuing to be grateful for the time our living friends give me. I am grateful for all the little lives I have woven into my own, each one so very different from the next. I will love them all until they leave me, and then I will love them still. Surely the best way we can honor those we lose is to continue to share our love. To take that love and share it with the living who need it.

excerpt from In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver (28-36):

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.