The Notion of Forgiveness

There is something in the air right now. Ghosts are rising within me, and together we are revisiting old wounds. Many around me are experiencing a similar space for themselves. Old unresolved hurts may rise from the ether, but it’s never too late to heal them. Yet how do we heal when the one who hurt us, or the one we hurt, is no longer living?

If there’s anything my work with the spirit world has taught me, it’s that we put too much weight on the need for a physical body in cases where our journey concerns the emotional one. If what you want is for the other person to physically apologize to you or accept your apology and that is the only thing that will give you closure, you may be sitting in that pain for a very long time. Especially if they have passed. That is not healthy.

Whether or not you sit there is your choice. There are always choices in difficult situations. Choices to stay or go, to forgive or forget. Choices to accept or deny. To hold onto or let go.

The notion of forgiveness no longer has the shape that my early religious beliefs taught me. I took a four-day class in the Buddhist philosophy of LovingKindness as a means of healing my inner anger ball. I almost skipped the day on Forgiveness because my resentment towards it was so strong. When I told Whispering Deer that I thought it was foolish to forgive someone, as if you are supposed to forget what they did to you, she looked shocked that I would even consider it.

“Why would you forget what they did to hurt you?” she asked, and then she explained that you don’t forget. It happened. Forgetting what they did as if it didn’t happen is rewriting history, changing your experiences, and ignoring a painful lesson you learned.

We forgive others when we need to forgive them because the weight and anger of what we are holding onto is still harming us. Us. We do not forgive someone because they need it. It is not our duty to forgive those who have hurt us, for they can seek forgiveness without the weight of their actions evoking any true change in them. When it’s needed, we find a way to forgiveness so that we might rise ourselves out of the hurt that was done to us. We forgive, but we do not forget. And we forgive with the understanding that the other party must hold our relationship to a higher standard. By forgiving them we are telling them we believe in them. It is not an excuse to allow them to repeat the hurtful pattern.

Sometimes we can’t gift forgiveness because we are still trying to work past the event. Any forgiveness given before we’re ready would be false and the hurt would lay quiet, festering within. This is when we unleash the event like a weapon over and over again. Sometimes the path to forgiveness means removing ourselves from the situation, disconnecting from the hurtful party when that person shows no change. Staying to be hurt again would be the more foolish option. It’s important to always be honest about where you are in your process.

Reversely, when we seek forgiveness, we do it with the understanding that we wronged someone. Whether we believe we were wrong or not, we accept and feel regret for the hurt we caused. By seeking forgiveness we recognize a need for change in ourselves, perhaps within that specific relationship, and we are promising that other person that we will rise to meet that need. If we do not take responsibility for what we did, and change the behavior, our words are empty.

If we ask someone for forgiveness, we cannot be mad at the injured party for remembering what occurred. Forgiveness is not an eraser. It is not a clean slate. We have to earn it by not repeating that pattern.

If we seek forgiveness and it is not given, even if we have truly seen a change in ourselves, we have done all we can do. That has to be enough for our own healing. If we were honest in its seeking, we are at a place to accept that we may simply have to continue to show that we have changed and be patient while the one we hurt heals.

What if the person we injured is the one who has passed on? In some ways it may sound easier to forgive one who has died than to seek forgiveness from them. But they are two sides of the same coin. If one can be done, so can the other.

The answers lie within you and healing can be found. Ritualizing the action of it can be the structure we need to feel the shape of the magic of release. Making Amends with the Dead, coming next week, will speak more to manifesting forgiveness through personal ritual.

When We Fall

 “Your first parent was a star.”

from Weight by Jeanette Winterson

I do a nightly meditation to relieve my stress and remove the chaos of the day before I sleep. We all carry weights on our shoulders that no one else sees. We are each together in our unspoken burdens. Like our ancestors before us, we soldier forward, unknowingly adapting and evolving to bear the burden of time and knowledge, and we learn to shine brightly despite the residue it leaves behind.

We are each stars in our own dark night. We are each the thing we need to survive, our own bright knight, our own magical kiss to break the spell. We are the conduit between the past of our spirit world that lives in star energy and the past of our physical world that lives in the earth beneath us. Our bodies are the space where earth and sky meet.

I do this as a meditation, pulling energy up from the earth into me and calling energy down from the stars into me. I do this with the lesson of Tree, and I become rooted, hands dancing in the exhalation of breezes softly blowing. I use Tree because they breathe in seasons, slowly. In this meditation, the excess stress and worry drains back into the earth for transformation and transmutation.

I become the root in the earth and the tree staring into the night, and the star lighting up the sky. I am all these things and I am me. I stand on the bones of my ancestors and I look to their memory. And in the dance between yesterday and today I find myself in Now, even if just for a moment. And my world stills, as the world around me continues on. It becomes music, percussion, orchestration that is but does not distract. In this stillness, my weight disappears. I become light. I am light. I exist in the dark night and I am not tarnished. I shine in spite of. I am brilliant.

Yet even stars fall sometimes. We all fall sometimes.

The weight becomes unbearable and we spin out of control. We all have moments in our lives where our worlds lose their compass and we have no sense of direction. We just want to grab onto a buoy and hold on until the storm passes or the waters calm themselves. We need to hold onto something. Anything. We are leaden and forget we can fly. We forget we can shine a beacon so fierce that it will push the gloom away.

What was your darkest night? What, in your life, shook your world to its core so much so that all you wanted to do was to build your own cave, crawl under the covers and pretend nothing existed outside of them? And we have to let ourselves revel in the fall momentarily, to feel the impact it has on our bones and our tissue. To feel the change rippling from within us, moving with an outward trajectory. We have to feel the change before we can stand in it.

There are lessons lying in wait for us in all the events of our lives, if we can see them. Our ancestors who came before us forgot as well, when they fell. They also had moments of hardship where it didn’t seem like things could possibly get better and they sat in fear that they could, or would, get worse. Living and surviving are not easy, even though we have built comforts up around ourselves to pretend they are. We all have these moments because we have always had these moments. But now, in the spirit world, our ancestors remember what we forget in this one.

In shedding the physical they remember the lessons. I call in the wisdom of their bones as I pull energy up from the earth. I call in the guidance of the history of ancestors who are starlight above us. I pull it into me to feed the fire. With their strength, I burn as brightly as I can. I am the only flame I need against gloom and doubt.

Falling is clumsy and painful. Grace lies in how we pick ourselves up. In whether or not we can shake ourselves off and move forward despite the weight of it. And we can. For generations, we have. We must shine brightly, to show others that it is possible. To show others the way.

Who wants to stare up at a night sky devoid of stars?

*photo is courtesy of energytalkradio.wordpress.com

Experiencing Death III: Squirrel in the Road

This is the third installment in a monthly thread, where I will be looking back at the early experiences I had with death and reflecting on how those moments shaped my views and fears of it. In order to change my relationship with the concept of death, I have to understand what shaped it to begin with. Our ideas and philosophies are meant to evolve and change, to grow as our own experiences do.

It was a quiet afternoon. I was young enough that we still played to the edges of our block and looked multiple times, both ways, before running across the street to the other side. Halfway down the block, in front of the only house of apartments, there was a squirrel in the road. I thought it was dead, another casualty of an automobile on our mostly quiet street. But I thought I saw it breathing.

I looked back and forth many times and darted out into the road. I think the fact that in my memory the road seemed bigger than I know it to be, is telling of my age. I was glad I did because the squirrel wasn’t dead. He was gasping for air, looking at the sky. And then he turned his eyes to me.

He started trembling, every instinct telling him to run. His tiny hand opened and closed with his labored breath. He was still alive but I knew he was dying. I wanted to scoop him up and run him home but I worried that the grown-ups would be more mad that I had touched a wild animal than that a squirrel was dying.

I’d seen dead animals in the street before, flat shapes in the road. We all have. All I knew was that I couldn’t leave him in the road, half-alive, to be crushed as he died because he couldn’t run away. I talked very softly to him, told him I wasn’t going to hurt him although it might hurt a little. I remember promising him I wouldn’t touch him, having been told that some animals would reject other wild ones that smelled of human.

He was laying atop a large cluster of leaves and I very slowly and very gently pulled the leaves closer to the side of the road, obsessively watching for traffic. He made no sound and didn’t move. He just opened and closed his little fist as he struggled for air.

I calmed a bit when he was no longer in the open and I sat on the curb, my knees pulled in, sitting with him. Even then I had a sense that he shouldn’t be alone. Who knew how old he was, if he had family? What if animals could feel the way we felt? What if he was scared? It must have been autumn. In my memories leaves fell softly while we sat there.

I talked quietly with him and sang softly to him. I wished I could save him. I’m pretty sure I prayed for him to be okay, that he might get up and walk away. After that, my memory splits.

I remember my mother coming to find me. I remember her sitting beside me for a moment. She asked me if I touched it and I told her I knew I shouldn’t. She wanted me to come home but I didn’t want to leave it alone. She said that I was right that it was dying. Its breathing was already slower and less urgent. She told me I did a wonderful thing for the squirrel and it was time to come home.

I also remember a woman sitting beside me, more ether than flesh, with chestnut hair and a weathered housedress. She wrapped an arm around me and we watched the squirrel as I cried. I think I apologized for not being able to be more help. Maybe they both happened. Maybe the ghost arm became my mother’s when she came to see where I was. I remember there was a woman. Maybe my mother was never there and my brain imposed her face onto another, because she is known to me. All I know for sure is that it wasn’t just me and the squirrel at the curb.

There’s no clear lesson in this experience for me except that I have always remembered the look on that squirrel’s face. It was the first time I recognized the shadow of death without having seen it before. I have never forgotten the feeling of knowing that death was imminent, as if I saw it every day. Often our intuition knows better than we do.

Once we see that shadow, however it manifests for us, we are altered. It is our fear that changes us in harmful ways, closing our minds to the reality of it. Sometimes the alteration is as simple as awareness and we open ourselves to a larger cycle of life. Life and death are intertwined, interconnected and those who can embrace the inevitability of death are the ones who can embrace the wonder of the living world more fully.

Relevant Posts:

Introduction to Death: The Unborn Baby (published May 16, 2012)

Introduction to Death II: My Father’s Father (published June 13, 2012)

My People in 1776 America

In 1776 America, colonists were fighting a war of Independence for a freedom from English rule and taxes. I am proud to know the names of my ancestors who stood on this soil when the Declaration of Independence was signed. I am grateful to those of my ancestors who took up arms to defend and create the vision of what this country could become.

We are not perfect, nor are we equal, but we have freedoms many people in the world do not. I do not take them for granted. I know where, in this world, my bloodroots are tethered. I know of the soil where my ancestors were living the day the Declaration was signed.

There were many in Sharon, Massachusetts, including Lemuel Lyon, 47, and his wife Lydia Perry, 46, along with their daughter Silence, 20. Samuel Bird, age 47, and Anna Atherton also lived in Sharon with their son Enoch Bird, 24, who would marry Silence five years later. Thomas Ridel, 36, and Rebekah Moulton, 33, lived in Monson with their son Joseph, age 16. Capt. Freeborn Moulton, 58, and Rebekah Walker, 58, were in Brimfield, Massachusetts. Jacob Wicker, 53, and his wife Abiah Washburn, 50, lived in Leicester. Their son William Wicker, 28, and his wife Susannah Parker, 21, resided in Hardwick. John Parker, 51, and Jane Pearson, 50, were in Reading. James Kittredge, 49, and his spouse Mary Bailey, 45, were in Andover. Abner Whittier, Jr., 41, and Elizabeth Dow, 40, called Methuen, Massachusetts home.

In Ridgefield, Connecticut were James Sears, age 71 and Desire Tobey, age 68, as well as their son Knowles Sears, 37, and his wife Susannah Townsend, 35. Benjamin Eaton, 45, and Hepsibah Skiff, 44, lived in Tolland with their son Joshua Eaton, age 5. David Dutcher, 34, was located in Salisbury, Connecticut. Alexander Hannah, 49, and Mary Calhoun, 43, were in Woodbury. Wheeler Gillett, 31, and Julianna Merchant lived in Milford.

Some of my ancestors had already found themselves in New York, like young Jennie Palmer, 13, in Cairo and Oliver DeLozier, 28, and his wife Eleanor Erkells, 20, somewhere near New Amsterdam. Baltus Goedemoet, 53, and Gertrude Michel were in Kinderhook, New York with their young daughter Annatje, 16, as well as Walter F. Dixon, 21, the man Annatje would marry four years later.

And among those ancestors were the soldiers who took up arms, from oldest to youngest, were Capt. Freeborn Moulton, Jacob Wicker, Baltus Goedemoet, Lemuel Lyon, Thomas Ridel, William Wicker, Oliver DeLozier, and Joseph Riddle.

Today my family has spread across the country and the descendants of these few names are numerous and overwhelming. They were the seeds that sparked new life throughout a new world. They had the best of intentions and an open vision to the future, that served as the foundation for our constant growth and struggle towards equality.

Where We've Been, Where We're Going

Charles & Ruth Ruston.

I am he as you are he as you are me as we are all together… John Lennon

That song lyric has been swimming through my head. I am, because my ancestors were. They were so that I could become. And I am meeting strangers through my blog in states far away from me who exist because our same ancestor did. It feels like that first moment you find yourself out in the country and you look up and see how dense with stars the night sky really is. It’s breathtaking, awe-inspiring, humbling, and slightly terrifying.

When I started this blog, I had a list of 465 names from my father for our family tree. A dozen or so of them were of my mother’s line but most were the culmination of the research his family had been doing for generations. Even though it was a lot of names, I knew there were more. There are always more, stretching back into the ancestral ether when there were no names put to faces.

We are more than our names. We are more than our date of birth and date of death. In truth, we are more than the list of occupations we take on in our lifetimes.

In my work I am striving to uncover the unknown, through diligent research and spiritual meditation. I currently have 701 names on my ancestral tree. The names spin around in my head like strands of thread and the tapestry is weaving itself into my memory. I find myself speaking their surnames aloud in my meditations, calling to them, asking them for guidance. There are 250 surnames known to me, covering all 701 of my known ancestors.

Having the names means so much to me. Knowing a lineage is exciting. But they are just names. It is the clues in the research that flesh out the bone and character of the men and women.

Charles Evan Ruston, the son of a wealthy farmer in England, fell in love with Ruth Ireland, a servant girl in the home of a family who went to their church. His father made him choose and he chose her. They came to America together and their granddaughter was my grandmother. Charles was disowned and the members of our family who have gone over to trace the Rustons passed his father Richard, have been told that Richard did not have a son named Charles- though Charles shows clearly on the English census reports up to 1881.

It’s human of us to want to change our histories to sound better or to suit how we see the world we’ve created. But I embrace the truth of the stories, even dear Hawise of Lancaster, who married her nephew John De Lea. They were only 5 years apart in age, but still… she married her brother’s son in the late 1100s. It happened and it’s part of my family tree.

What I know about my ancestors, is that the men in my mother’s paternal line have been factory workers, truck operators, die setters, farmers, day laborers, saw mill operators, militia drum majors, soldiers, traders with the West Indies, lumberjacks, maltsters, innkeepers, Deacons, master shipwrights, constables, Masters at a Grammer School, and refugees fleeing Protestant massacres.

The men in my mother’s maternal line have been factory workers, blacksmiths, stewards, chaffeurs, gardeners, bootleggers, city laborers, canal lock tenders, stonecutters, soldiers, farmers, canal workers, livery hack owners, and farm laborers.

The men in my father’s maternal line have been bank clerks and insurance salesmen, farm laborers, factory workers, carpenters, merchants of flour and feed stores, Masons, wealthy farmers, carpenters, soldiers, shoemakers, ferryboat operators, prisoners of war, cabinetmakers, shoemakers, translators with the Natives, and civil engineers.

The men in my father’s paternal line have been bookkeepers, farm laborers, prison guards, soldiers, wheelwrights, farmers, lumberjacks, carpenters, curate and church wardens, tanners, authors, Captains, constables, Ministers, weavers, fenceviewers, Sheriffs and forest Rangers, Knights of the Order of the Garter, members of Parliament, Lords, Earls and Barons, engravers in the King’s mint, merchants, goldsmith to the King, chamberlain of Scotland, crusaders, more Knights, and even Kings themselves.

Of the women, I know they were housewives, mothers, as well as farmers and crafters of clothing and sustenance. There were glovemakers and singers, as well as Countesses and creators of peace through arranged marriages. And a concubine and a mistress. One woman named Alice, whose lineage is unknown to historians, was married to John Eaton in Watertown, MA. She was seen with great respect by the town for her husband had some weakness, some life affliction that kept him not always in his right mind. And she managed the house and went to the authorities when others tried to take advantage of him and his fortunes. It is sad to me that her name is not known, but what strength of character she must have had. That strength flows in me.

Out of the names I know and the information I have as to their geographic location, my cultural lineage in order of dominance is English, American, French, Dutch, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Norman, Germanic, and Polish. I think of that bloodline, that DNA in me, like a river that streams, that ebbs and flows, whose volume and currents will change as more information is made available to me.

I call to my ancestors, the known among the bloodline and the others whose spirits answer to these names, yet unknown: Albertse, Andrews, Art, Atherton, Auckland, Bailey, Baldwin, de Banastre, Barnes, Bassett, Beaman, de Beauchamp, de Beaumont, Beck, de Bellews/Beaulieu, Berry, Bird, Birdsall, Blois, Bondt, Boots, Borden, Botetourt, Boutell, Brereton, Brigham, Briscoe, Brock, de Brus, Bryan, Burke, Burnah, Bursell, Burzee, Calhoun, Canfield, Capen, Chaffe, Channon, Charland, Clapp, Clickner, Clitheroe/de Clitheroe, Coe, Coleman, Conners, Conyers, Cooke, Corbet, Corbman, Cornelisse, Coulon, Crane, Cressett, Crosby, Davis, Deblois dit Gregoire, Dell, Dighton, de Dive, Dixon, Domett, Dow, Dowd, Downing, Dubois, Durant, Dutcher/De Duyster/De Duitscher, Dyer, Eastman, Eaton/de Eaton, Emett, Enberg, Erkells, Evans, Fafard, Feagles, Field, Fitch, Fitzalan, Fitzbaldric, Fitzharding, Fitzotes, Fitzrobert, Fitzthomas, Fitzwilliam, Flaad, Ford/Fford/de Ford, Foster, Freemillion, Furnival, Gay, Gibbs, Gillette/Gillett/Gylette/de Gylette, Gilson, Goedemoet, Gordon, Goode, Goodere, Goodwin, Gould, Gower, de Grammaire, de Grandmesnil, de Gras, Green, Groves, Gruier, Gunn, Hakins, Halsey, Hannah, Hanniford, Harblutt, Hawley, de Hedsin, Hemenway, Hertford, Hill, Holbrook, Holland, Honor, de Houghton, Hoyt, Hussey, Ireland, Jennery, Jones, Kelsey, Kempe, Kendall, Kittredge, Knowles, La Groves, de Lancaster, LaRoche, LaValley/Lavalle/Lavallee, Lamorel, de Lancaster, Lane, Langevin, de Lea, Lesueur/Le Sueur/Lozier/De Lozier/Delozier, Lemonier, Lenton, Leroux, De Leuchars, Lillie, Lunt, Lusk, Lyon, Machet, de Maeschines, Manningford, Manningham, Marsh, Marshall, Masters, Merchant, Mestre, Meunier dit Lemonier, Michel, Morgan, Moulton, Nichols, Norton, Nunwicke, Paine, Palmer, Paquet/Paquet dit Lavallee, Parker, Pearson, Perry, Pietersen, Pils, Pond, Pye, de Qunicy, Raymond, Reeve, Richardson, Riddle/Ridel/Riddell, Rolfe, Ruston, de Saint Liz/Senlis, Sallee, Sallows, Savage, de Say, Schmeelk, Sears/Sayer, Seubering, Sherborne, Skiff, Slote, Smith, Sotheron, de Spendler,

St. Philibert, de Stafford, Stanley, Stapleton/de Stapleton, Starr, de Stuteville/de Estuteville, Sutton, de Swynnerton, Talbott/de Tallebot, Talmage, Tempest, Tenney, Terhune, Thurgood, Tibou, Tobey, de Tonge, de Tosny, Townsend, Treadwell, Ufflete/de Ufflete, de Upton, De Valognes, Van der Linde, Van Deusen, Van Gelder, Van Vorhees, Vose, Waddington, Walker, Ward, de Warenne, Washburn, de Wath, Watson, Wattes, Wheeler, Whitcher/Whittier/Whytear, Wicker/Whicker, Williams, Wilson, Withington, Wolfe, Woodhall, Woodward, Wrottesley, Wyatt, Zabriskie

Summer Solstice, Sunning Stones

It is the first day of summer. Gardens are growing, blackberry blossoms are opening, and strawberries are ripe in the fields. The green is unfurling into splendor and its heraldry is prompted by the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice. The natural world around us still holds that yellow-green hue of energy and growth.

In my childhood, summer meant the arrival of my Great-Grandma Elsie, who we called Grandma-from-Florida. She spent every summer with us, sleeping in the small spare room with the white chenille bedspread. I have memories of sitting in her room in the morning while she dressed, running hands over the raised pattern of the bedspread that only she used. Summer for us meant Great-Grandma’s sweater sets and culottes. I remember my fascination over how she put on her knee-high stockings every day before slipping on her sandals.

Elsie was born on June 21, 1904. If she was alive she’d be 107. The way her face lit up when we enjoyed the first fresh strawberry shortcake of her visit was a joy that could outshine the sun itself. Every strawberry I eat in-season tastes like that memory. It tastes like Elsie’s joy.

Summer was family time and the warmth that comes with it. Summer was the wild abandon of playing fantastical games with neighborhood friends for days on end, called to enjoy the heat while we could. We were like moths dancing around the sun.

The ancestor work that I do is as much about the living and the now as it is about the ones who came before me. Those layers of memories that I am lucky to have of what family means, with both my blood family and the chosen family I build around me, are the energy source that propels my genealogical research into uncovering the ones who came before. And I do it all so that the ones who come after will know the names and the stories.

Family matters. It’s not always easy or painless. We’re not all lucky enough to have it in our formative years. But finding it, creating it, birthing it, is at the core of what we do and how we survive.

When I think of that feeling, that energy, I think of the futhark runes Cen (aka ken or kenaz) and Sigel (aka sowilo or sol). Cen is the internal warmth and fire. Sigel is the sun, the outer heat. Cen is the heat of the hug that you give and receive when you are truly happy to see someone. It is the inner sun. The inner warmth. Moving from your internal hearth fire outward. Solstice is the perfect time to recharge your inner joy, using the heat of the sun above us, at its height as an energy source.

Make yourself a simple talisman for carrying that energy into the waning days of the year. Place a stone outside, where it will catch the rays of the day. It can be a special stone that has other meaning for you or it can be a stone you find in your yard or at the park. Charge it under the full height of the noon light and leave it outside until dusk finally sets in. As Solstice officially begins at 7:00 pm today, I will be setting my stone out tomorrow.

 Keep the stone inside your house during the year, in whatever room becomes your hearth, your nesting space. My stone becomes my talisman through the winter, through the other solstice with its longest night. When I have need, I hold it in my hands.

Beneath the cool exterior lies a flicker of heat. I can close my eyes and feel the warmth of the summer sun caressing my skin. I can hear the laughter of children at play. I can taste the juice of fresh, ripe strawberries. I can see the joy on Elsie’s face and I know she walks with me still. I know the ancestors stand with her and I know they stand with me from longest day to longest night and back again, turning on the wheel as the living world moves forward.

Experiencing Death II: My Father’s Father

This is the second installment in a monthly thread, where I will be looking back at the early experiences I had with death and reflecting on how those moments shaped my views and fears of it. In order to change my relationship with the concept of death, I have to understand what shaped it to begin with. Our ideas and philosophies are meant to evolve and change, to grow as our own experiences do. It is important to note that my perceptions are based on my memory, and I understand the facts may differ, but what we remember is the emotional memory we carry with us into future moments.

I only have one clear memory of my father’s father, though I have many later memories of his house, the one my dad grew up in, where the clan would gather every Christmas. In my recollection, we were at the house during the holiday season, in the living room with my Grandpa. My Grandma was in the kitchen.

There was this beautiful stone wall/fireplace in the living room and I loved the feel of the stone beneath my hands. I loved the feel of the earth on the inside. I was sitting in front of it and I remember my Grandpa smiling at us, asking us if we wanted a cookie. My parents both said no but he wouldn’t be stopped and he left the room. My parents told us we could each have one cookie (I think we were on our way to dinner).

I remember him coming back from the kitchen with a platter full of all different kinds of cookies. He was smiling as if his greatest pleasure in the world was giving his grandchildren cookies against his childrens’ protestations. When I close my eyes I can see that smile. The next bits of memory I have of my Grandpa Mark are sadder, laying on the couch, an afghan thrown over him. He was sick with cancer.

When he died, we did not attend the funeral. We were too young; I was only about six. I didn’t understand. Not at first. Grandpa went away. But one of my neighborhood friends had moved to another school system and had gone away, as in was not going to be in my daily life anymore. How small our worlds are at that age. But I knew that she was still alive, somewhere else in the city. So I didn’t fully understand. All I knew was that we wouldn’t see him again.

My father was so sad. It’s an impression I have that I carried with me through my childhood. I knew it was because he would never see his father again. I couldn’t imagine. I still can’t. It’s not a shadow I’ve known yet.

I don’t know exactly when, after my grandfather died, I started my nightly musings but I used to try to imagine what it would be like to die. I unknowingly walked myself through a nightly meditation into shutting down my body, my sister sleeping in the bed across the room from me. One by one I would tune into my muscles, my limbs, and disconnect until I couldn’t feel them anymore.

Then I would imagine losing brain function. In my youth that meant everything the brain operated, including memory. It wouldn’t matter that my parents would miss me because I wouldn’t remember they were my parents. That they’d been my parents at all. That all of the things I stressed about wouldn’t matter when this life was over.

I have always been an over-thinker, to my own detriment. I had stumbled into the philosophy of the finality of death and dying before I had any concept of transformation or spiritual rebirth. I did not believe the soul or spirit was separate from the body yet.

Around then, I dreamt that I walked into my Grandfather’s living room and the green couch I had seen him laying on was empty. I turned the corner to go to the hallway to the kitchen but found myself standing in our living room. Where the carpet should have been was grass. There were four freshly buried graves. Four but not five. I ran around the house and no one else was there. All the beds were empty. My father, mother, brother and sister were gone. I was alone.

It broke something in me. I woke from that nightmare terrified. I realized more about what had happened than I could comprehend. Sometime before or after that, in the middle of school I started screaming that my grandpa was dead. I was sent down to the nurse’s office until my mom came to get me. I remember the feeling inside me. It was as if something had just taken a bite out of the light inside me, leaving a large black hole where the thread that held him to me had been. I couldn’t access it anymore. He was gone and I was sad, too.

At this point in my childhood, I equated death with loss, simple and finite. I began to fear it and in the years that followed that fear would grow. It would be a decade and more before I learned the tools to change that perspective.

Relevant Posts:

Introduction to Death: The Unborn Baby (published May 16, 2012)