Oh, yesterday was hard hard hard.  I'm not sure why...Mother's Day?  Even though David and I were not much on holidays?  Just another round of deep grief?  I find myself wishing I could just feel it all at once and get it over with.  At one point yesterday I was on my knees in the dirt of the garden, sobbing and crying, "I just can't do this anymore.  It's too hard."  Maybe it's the beauty of Spring, and the work of the garden and how I can't keep up.  Maybe it's just what it is.  I find myself begging him to just come back now.  Which step is that in the grief process?  Bargaining?  I hate that stupid grief process.  It's different from a breakup....with breakups the person is still in the world, there is still possibility, even when there isn't.  Folks don't come back from death.  Hope is a hard thing to hold on to in this case. 

I got myself to church, late.  And had to leave early, but I got there.  The rector spoke of what it must have been like for the followers of Jesus.  To be lost and confused and fearful, having lost the person they loved so much, the person who was leading them to something new and different and better.  And then he was back with them.  What joy that must have been.  But then ascension happens and they watch him leave them again.  Despair.  I can relate to all of this, what I wish, how I would feel, and I'm not sure I could stand the second loss.  David (the rector) said, "Ascension leads to Pentecost."  I haven't been able to let go of that phrase.  Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit blows through and cleans everything out, brings peace and purpose back into their lives. I could use some of that.  We never know when it will happen, but to go on, I have to believe it will. 

Bobby McFerrin does a version of the 23rd Psalm using the feminine pronoun and I love it, especially the part where he says "the mother, and the daughter, and the Holy of Holies."  So much better than, "the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost."  I am ready for the Holy of Holies to breathe some new life into my grief and fear and loss. 

Let's remake the world with words.
Not frivolously, nor
To hide from what we fear,
But with a purpose.

Let's,
As Wordsworth said, remove
"The dust of custom" so things
Shine again, each object arrayed
In its robe of original light.

And then we'll see the world
As if for the first time.
As once we gazed at the beloved
Who was gazing at us.

~ Gregory Orr ~