Over the past several months there have been many souls making their transitions, seemingly untimely because they were so young, still in their prime years. These passings include family members as well as losses in the families of friends and neighbors.
I have experienced the loss of very close friends and of parents and siblings in the more distant past, but I somehow seemed to be more accepting of those losses, perhaps because they’d been preceded by a long, slow decline in health, making them seem like blessings, like transitions that were chosen and in alignment with the divine order for each soul.
But I am left wondering what it must be like to unexpectedly lose one’s spouse? Or even more unfathomable…one’s child? How does one go on living with such unanswered questions? Why, God?
Imagining what it must be like for those who are suffering the grief of such a loss, I remembered a recent poem from Mark Nepo’s book, The Book of Awakening. Here it is:
Putting Down Pain
The time has come to put our stones down.
For hands clutching stones can’t freely drum.
And hearts fisting the past can’t freely sing.
He goes on to write, “The timeless and essential drama of living into the unknown resides in this simple sequence. We must risk putting down the stone or stick or gun we are grasping, in order to build or touch or make music of any kind…hands must be emptied before they can be filled anew. It is the same with our hearts. It is why courage, day by day, is necessary.”
My take-away from his words is that, in order to fulfill our soul’s purpose for being here in this lifetime, we must let go and let God guide us back into living in the moment while we wait for possible answers to our unanswered questions. We each must experience our grief as fully and as completely as we are able to and need to, one moment at a time, perhaps feeling lifted out of it during moments when we are able to experience the joy of wonder-filled past moments we shared with those beloved souls. And for those of us who are not presently dealing with such grief, we can be present to the grief of others and be ready to support them by listening with an open heart.
This is all I was given to share with you and a part of me wonders if it was enough, yet another voice seems to reassure me that I can only offer what I’m called to write, and so I trust something shared here will serve you.
Love & Light, Steven