Standing Deer

As the house of a person
in age sometimes grows cluttered
with what is
too loved or too heavy to part with,
the heart may grow cluttered.
And still the house will be emptied,
and still the heart.

As the thoughts of a person
in age sometimes grow sparer,
like a great cleanness come into a room,
the soul may grow sparer;
one sparrow song carves it completely.
And still the room is full,
and still the heart.

Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible and so why not.

Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished and so why not.

Beloved, what can be, what was,
will be taken from us.
I have disappointed.
I am sorry. I knew no better.

A root seeks water.
Tenderness only breaks open the earth.
This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

 

 

Today everything I tried to accomplish was an exercise in frustration.  The children are finished with school and keeping them learning for another month is sometimes almost impossible.  I don't blame them, it is beautiful outside and sometimes all I want is to be out there soaking up sun.  I tried to go to the courthouse to switch the truck title into my name.  Oh my.  Not so simple.  forms to fill out, lawyers to call, then another call, then come back later.  I tried to go to Social Security to find out what I need to do there and whether or not I am even able to collect on David's.  I might not be able to, which creates a lot of other problems.  Social Security is only open limited hours, I don't know what someone does when they work 8-5.  I tried calling but no one ever answers and you can't do anything online.  So another trip another day.  I'm afraid to go, I don't know if I want to hear the news.  Part of our financial plan was believing that I would be able to collect on David's Social Security.  If I can't, well, I'm afraid to go there right now.  I just wanted to accomplish one thing today.  Just one thing. 

 

Instead, I went outside and planted things in the garden, dug weeds, and wandered around surveying Spring.  A mixed blessing.  David and I usually did this together.  It was our daily gift, sharing the joy of what we had created here.  It is hard not to be able to share it with him and yet it still brings such joy to find the first Jack in the Pulpit, to get an unexpected whiff of fragrance from the azaleas, to see the first Columbine bloom. 

 

Empty and filled, filled and empty.  That's all there is.

Someone gave me a little book on grief today and it helped; every little bit helps.  This passage was hidden in it's pages:

"The melody that the loved one played on the piano of your life will never be played quite that way again, but we must not close the keyboard and allow the instrument to gather dust.  We must seek out the artists of the spirit, new friends who gradually will help us find the road to life again, who will walk the road with us."  Rabbi Joshua Liebman

I love the images of the piano of my life not ever being played in quite the same way again and the artists of the spirit.  Those phrases allow me somehow to see beauty in the future.  Seeing my life as a piano that was played one way and can still be played again, just in a different way allows for such variation, new combinations, different emphasis, phrasing, timing....I like it.  And that it is artists of the spirit who are to be sought.  I've always wished that I was an artist of some kind and I like the idea of being an artist of the spirit, of life.  I hope that as I find those in my life I will be one for others as well. 

In church today, our minister talked about so many of the pains and losses of our world and how love is the only way out.  Every great spiritual path tells us this.  Love one another, first and foremost.  He asked us to stand and share an act of love that we were a part of this last week. When I start thinking like that I am overcome by the beauty of the place I am in right now.  There are so many acts of love, it could take pages to share them all.  All is not lost, love still wins.  He ended with this quote from Wendell Berry:

"I have no love except it come from thee.  Help me carry this candle against the wind."

That is all we can really do for one another, help carry the candle against the wind. 

There are three things that are hard.  Going to bed at night and then getting up in the morning are hard.  By far the most difficult is sitting at the desk.  We have a huge double built in desk that David made and it's where all the photos and "stuff" are.  David would get up in the morning and sit with coffee checking the stock market.  I got up later and came to kiss him good morning, then fed the chickens and walked the dog.  Once those chores were done I would get my coffee and join him there.  We spent some of every morning sharing news, sitting side by side.  It was one of the happiest moments of many in my day.  Some days I simply can't face it and I take the laptop elsewhere.  I have yet to turn on his computer, that is something that will have to wait for quite some time. 

Most days I walk around feeling as if I have been kicked in the chest.  That is where I feel my grief the most.  A woman friend from church gave me a heart shaped rock she found in the river by her house.  She prayed with it and gave it to me along with a wonderful meal.  Sometimes holding that rock in the center of my chest takes some of the ache away.  The power of love, and prayer, and rocks, and river.

Every day seems full of firsts; I did not expect so many.  So many little everyday firsts that sometimes cycle around and around.  Today I went to a plant sale that we went to every year.  We shared a weakness for growing things and we could always find something we simply had to have.  I had to breathe deeply as I walked around the booths, but I bought a fringe tree to plant at the entrance to our property and a curly willow to put next to the spring, and my annual pineapple sage that I can never get to overwinter. 

The curly willow is a small sprig of a thing and the couple that sold it to me were so lovely.  Old mountain folks with white hair, some missing teeth, and a stump of a cigar.  You could tell they had grown up together, they knew each others stories and teased each other as they smiled fondly. The man winked at me as I left.  Carrie has a song with the phrase:  They wore love like lightening, it was something to see, with the face of their true love, set up on their sleeves.  I always knew I would never have that kind of time with David, we met too late in life to grow up together.  But we wore our love like lightening and it was something to see. 

The poet Naomi Shahib Nye writes, "Before you can know what kindness really is/ you must lose things/ feel the future dissolve in a moment/ like salt in a weakened broth...then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore."

I love her poetry and this one appeared in my inbox today.  She is so spot on.  For years I have had a sticker on my laptop that says "kindness changes everything."  And I thought I knew what that meant.  But I didn't.  Not until the future dissolved in a moment.  And then kindness really did become everything. 

I have been saved by the kindness of others.  Those who know and love me, strangers, acquaintances.  Kindness has always brought me to tears.  I can handle mean, I can handle angry, I can handle stupid, but kindness does me in. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  All of you.

It's amazing how I can live whole weeks in one day lately.  I wake up in one place and end the day miles down the road. 

Today I was walkng Lulu on a longish walk around the farm.   Looking out over spring rising up the mountainsides and listening to the birds, watching the rabbits and calves, I was struck by how alive everything is right now.  And of course, started to think about how alive David was.  He was the strongest healthiest guy on the farm.  He even put the young helpers to shame, throwing as many bales of hay at 71 as they did at 25.  He loved Spring and we always took a walk around our property, checking out what was coming up and marking plants to come back to later.  He was so alive.  And now he's not.  It doesn't seem real or possible that so much life can so suddenly be gone.

I didn't think I would make it through seeing my student today.  Wasn't sure I could do it, but shear force of will got me there and his joyful presence got me through.  Thank goodness for children. 

I went to see a financial advisor after that and found out that although we thought we had planned well, we didn't plan well enough.  Both of us counted on me being able to draw on David's social security.  I can't.  We were not married long enough.  So.  Life turned on a dime again today.  I have to find work that can meet all of the daily expenses, the sooner the better.  The house is payed for and that is a great blessing.  But I have to take deep breaths to stay calm.  It just doesn't seem fair that I have to find a way to cope with one more thing right now.  But (deep breath), perhaps it is a blessing.  Work will be good for me and perhaps I will find some new gift or calling or deepen the one I have always known. 

It is just so hard to find myself  moving so quickly from a comfortable looking forward in a known direction to suddenly not knowing where the horizon is.  One step forward and look around, take another step.  breathe.  That's all I can do.  And trust in the light.

Weary.  A wonderful old fashioned word that makes perfect sense to me right now.  I am weary.  I didn't sleep much, I cried until I could barely breathe.  I don't know why the night brought that, I just know I can barely move today.  I feel as if I can't go on and yet I have no choice but to go on. Oh, I know, I always have choices and I guess honestly, this is my choice:  to go on.  But right now, I have no idea how to do that and no idea how it is possible.
 That's how I feel. 
What I know is that it will get better and the way forward is simply one step at a time.  Feed the animals, pull the weeds, eat whether you want to or not. 
In case anyone is ever reading this and wondering how they will get through and why they are not doing better six weeks out, I want them to know how hard it is. That it doesn't just get better bit by bit.  It gets better and then it gets worse and then it gets better again.  And sometimes it really does feel as if you cannot do one more thing and why bother anyway.  But you keep doing one more thing, simply because you are alive.  And you trust that life still is a beautiful gift and will continue to be a beautiful gift.  Whether you can see it right now or not. 
Trust.
 Such a small word for such a huge thing.  Trust, Faith, Hope, Love.  Huge things, the only things, hard and beautiful things.  We can't really live without them and yet they are so hard to live with.  I am grateful for them, would not choose to live without them, and right now....struggling with them.  Fighting with angels....who was it who fought the angel and came out so very changed?  I feel like him.  Fighting with angels.

I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of nights and just felt off during the day.  I've been short tempered and grumpy.  Then today it hit me hard.  Again.  Grief, crying, feeling so lost and hopeless and overwhelmed.  Walking the dog I found myself thinking, "Okay, It's really time for you to come home now."  What is so weird is that I really couldn't shake the feeling that this has all been a temporary state.  That it actually was possible for him to come back.  Just come back, please please please.  I think I would do almost anything to make that possible. 
And so here I go again.  How can I do this?  How can I make it through the rest of my life without him here?  It seems that just when I start to feel a bit of normal, I get hit with one of these waves.  There is nothing I can do but submit to it.  I hate it, it hurts, physically and emotionally.  I want it to be over, I want it to be a horrible dream, I want to go back to six months ago,  I want something I can't have. 
This is easily the hardest thing I have ever done.
And that's it.  I don't really have anything else right now.  I'm just riding the wave as best I can.