Tag: memorials

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The Comfort of Memories

“When your friends are gone and you only can look at pictures, then remeber, that times and people change but that memories stay forever.” 

― C.M.

Losing loved ones is hard. For my friends and I, the past few years have dealt us some serious losses.

If you are lucky, you have memories to comfort you as you adjust and move on.

If you are luckier, you have friends who sit beside you and share their stories as you share your own.

Eventually, we all find ways to move on. It took me awhile to understand moving on did not mean forgetting. This realization eased my sorrow and restored daily joy. I found some fun and easy ways to keep each person in my daily routines.

A few examples:

–I have a votive candle burning as a daily rembrance.

–I have gardens around our house named in honor of them–even parts for our dogs.

–I have certain plants named after them so I can talk with them.

I have opened my mind to the signs they send. letting me know they are near. I have come to believe that our loved ones stay close to us–we just need to be aware of their signs and believe.

I found the following sometime ago by an unknown author who had some of the same ideas.

Hi.

This is your late loved one speaking. I don’t have long, so listen up because I have a lot I want to tell you. 

First off, I get it. 

Ever since I left this world you have missed me, and I know you’re bracing for the holidays without me. No matter what anyone says, this year’s festivities are going to be really tough. 

In fact, let’s be honest, this festive season will probably suck pondwater. But then, Thanksgiving and Christmas are tough holidays for a lot of people. You’re not alone.  

See, the misconception about the holidays is that they are one big party. That’s what every song on the radio claims. Each television commercial you see shows happy families clad in gaudy Old Navy sweaters, carving up poultry, smiling their perfect Hollywood teeth at the camera. But that’s not exactly reality. 

In reality, fifty-eight percent of Americans admit to feeling severely depressed and anxious during November and December. In reality many folks will cry throughout the “most wonderful time of the year.” 

Well, guess what? Nobody is crying up here in heaven. This place is unreal. There is, literally, too much beauty to take in. Way too much. 

For starters—get this—time doesn’t even exist anymore. Which I’m still getting used to. 

Right now, for all I know, the calendar year down on Earth could be 1728, 4045, 1991, or 12 BC. It really wouldn’t matter up here. This is a realm where there is no ticking clock, no schedule. Up here there is only this present moment. This. Here. Now. That’s all there has ever been. And there is real comfort in this. 

I know this all seems hard to grasp, but if you were here you’d get it. 

Also, for the first time I’m pain free. I feel like a teenager again in my body. You probably don’t realize how long I’ve lived with pain because I never talked about it, I kept my problems to myself because I was your loved one, and you needed me to be brave.  

But pain is a devious thing. It creeps up on even the strongest person, little by little, bit by bit. Until pretty soon, pain becomes a central feature of life. 

Sometimes my pain would get so bad it was all I thought about. No, I’m not saying that my life was miserable—far from it. I loved being on earth. It’s just that simply waking up each morning was getting exhausting. 

But, you know what? Not anymore. In this new place, I am wholly and thoroughly happy.  

But enough about me. I don’t have room to describe all the terrific things I’m experiencing, and you don’t need to hear them. Right now, you’re grieving, and what you need is a hug.  

Which is why I’m writing to you. This is my hug to you. Because you’ve lost sight of me. And in fact, you’ve lost sight of several important things lately. 

Death has a way of blinding us. It reorganizes the way you think, it changes you. You will never be the same after you lose someone. It messes with your inner physiology. It reorganizes you’re neurons.

But then, there’s one teensy little thing you’re forgetting:

I’m still around. 

Yes, you read that correctly, I’m right here with you. No, you can’t see me. No, you can’t reach out and hold me. But did you know that one of the things I’m allowed to do as a heavenly being is hang out with you? 

It’s true. I’m never far away. I’m in the room with you now, along with a big cloud of ancestors, saints, and witnesses. I’m shooting the breeze alongside you, watching you live your life, watching you raise your kids, watching your private moments of sorrow. 

Here, in this new realm, I am in the perfect position to help you learn things. Which is what I vow to spend the rest of your earthly life doing, teaching you little lessons, lending you a hand when you least expect it, and desperately trying to make you smile. Actually, I’ve already been doing this stuff, you just don’t realize it. 

What, you don’t believe me? 

Well, wake up, pal. You know that tingle you get in your spine whenever you think of me? That’s me. 

You know how, just yesterday, you had a beautiful memory when you were driving and it made you cry so hard that it actually felt good and you began to laugh through tears? Also me. 

You know how sometimes when you’re all alone, preoccupied with something else, suddenly you get this faint feeling that someone is standing in the room with you? Hello? Me.

You’re not alone on this earth. You never were. You never will be. So during this holiday season, when cheerful families are getting together and making merry, and taking shots of eggnog, I’m going to be clinging to your shoulder, helping you muddle through somehow. 

I’ll be making your spinal column tingle a lot, and I’ll be sending plenty of signs. Each of these signs—every single one—is code for “I love you.” So start paying attention to these hints. 

Because this was one.

Peace be with you, my friends.

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Memorials

“When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I’ve written about rituals before because they intrigue me and I think we need to create them.

My friend, Glynis, reminded me of my questions about ritual when she sent me this picture of her morning cup of tea. This beautiful cup was one of the last gifts she’d received from her friend, Sherrie. Glynis had been saving this fragile little cup because it’d become so special after Sherrie’s death. Now, after re-discovering it, Glynis realized  life is to short to save special things for only special times.

Now, every morning, as Glynis savors her tea and alone time, Sherrie joins her–every single morning–so simple and so very special.

Even though my arthritis often grabs my attention, I do know aging is a privilege not given to all. It comes with a very difficult downside–the loss of family members and friends.

I’ve learned a way to lessen my sorrow by creating a visual memorial to each loss.

For me, it was an easy choice.

After my cousin, Donna, died I started my first flower garden. It was my Donna garden for years until it evolved into the Donna-Bethie garden. When we moved, I couldn’t take the garden with me but I could take some of the special rocks surrounding it.

When we moved into our new home on the hill, the garden was reconstructed and replanted. As the years have passed, I’ve created more gardens and named them in honor of others lost. Each special person memorialized in a personal and powerful way.

I’d always felt a ritual had to be something huge. I now understand a ritual can be as simple as a rock, a rose, or as grand as grand as a tree.

I’m pretty sure size does not matter to the soul.

“This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn’t have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet.” 

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I am…

B…simply being.

~Peace be with you, my friends.~

Special thanks to my friend, Glynis Walker Morse, for sharing her ritual and her photo. Love you, my friend. 

 

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A Commitment

We are home from a short camping trip over to Big Bend country. We both love it there because it is so isolated. We were quickly reminded that it is very very very warm there this time of year.

Once home, I learned a tough lesson–one that comes with several parts. In an earlier post I shared a picture of the garden I planted in honor of my sister, Beth, and my cousin, Donna. Michael and I worked so hard on it. We used all the tricks we could think of preparing for what we knew could be stressful for it while we were gone. In addition to that, we asked a neighbor to come over daily to water that garden and a collection of potted vegetables. They agreed and visited with us the day before we left. We gave watering instructions and told them we would have the hose out and handy so the chore would be a quick and easy one.

Well…I think they may have passed the job off to one of the kids. We were gone four days and the attached picture is my memorial garden today. Michael watered it quickly in hopes he could make it look better before I walked out to see it. I am not sure we can revive it. Now, on the plus side, the vegetables look wonderful–we are thankful for that but sure do wish everything looked as good.

There are a couple of lessons here for me. The first one is to be cautious when you create things in memory of someone. When something happens to that honorary thing–whatever that may be–be prepared for that loss. It is a new one that will pick at that  roughly healed scar. Heavens, this is not a huge loss by any means, but it feels that way to me and it will cause me some grief for a while. The second lesson–and it is one that I am given over and over again–be careful when you ask a friend or a neighbor to do something for you. What happens when it does not work out? It may be worth hiring someone to do it–if that paid worker makes an error, you have recourse. When it is a friend or neighbor–you only have hard feelings.

There is also a tangential lesson here and it is an important reminder for all of us.  If you agree to do something for someone, do it. Simple. Keep your word. This past week saw very high temperatures with high humidity in our area–all making that walk over to our house a lot less enjoyable than it was a few days ago.

I found this very gentle instructional quote while I was thinking about my lessons of the day.

Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you. 

I am…

B…simply being…

Love and peace, y’all.