A House Shaken

 

 

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”

— Rumi

As time goes on, the tsunami begins to ebb and flow almost seasonal-like; it will come out of nowhere and seep up into your awareness until it takes over those spaces reserved just for this type of incidents; sorrow, reminding us of loss and, yes, growth, in that you begin to notice that it hurts less when it comes.  It is a gradual acceptance of things as they are.  You begin to realize that you survived what felt like you could not.  It brings with it fresh knowing that you are somehow changed but that that change was hard won through resilience and our ability to adjust, to surrender, to give way to inevitabilities that something bigger than us manifested in our lives.  That we were like children, hanging on to their mother’s hem, and being drug along as she changed and you ended up the better for the survival of it all without being totally undone, on your own, but a deeper soul because of it all.    Somehow, we give up what we thought we could not and acknowledged how little control we have over it all.

Yes, you still feel it in your bones.  You acted and reacted, as uniquely as you are a unique character in some Saturday Night Live sketch that was all adlibbed.  When you dropped all pretenses, defenses and protectionism’ all the things you thought were required and expected; and simply let sadness be what it was/is.  And we come to be at peace with that.   We do not forget the chill and thunderstruck pain.  It is there, just beyond the next memory, the next anniversary, that other revisitation to somewhere that was part of the definition of “us”.  There will always be a bit of sadness around the edges. You cannot stop it.  You cannot stuff it.  You cannot pretend it never happened.  You feel it because you will always remember it. 

Sorrow is inevitable.  It means we have been open and vulnerable to someone; that we loved; that we were greatly loved in return/or not.  The point being...WE loved.    We may look at it like it was something that was, but, in reality, it is truly something that always IS.  Somehow the sorrow becomes a drive to be what we thought we were, what we thought that they wanted us to be.    We learn what an honor it is to have cared that much. 

We rebuild.  We shore up that shaken house.  We do some patch work.  We make the best of what we see but others might never even guess at.  We are a heart with a black wreath on the door.  Only those close enough to enter will ever know.  There will be moments that the blinds come down and night settles in for its time with us.  There will be that slight drop at the curve of a smile.  There will be times for that far away look in our eyes.  But, in the end of it, will we dust ourselves off, polish things up, and look up to see something new and good enough just ahead of us: A houseful of old memories; the ones we choose to keep that reminds us how capable of love we are. 

©Carol Desjarlais 2.6.24

 

Tempora Mutantur

 

 

“Everything is going to be okay, my girl. I know that everything will work out for you. Be brave, be strong. Don’t listen to anyone – make your own decisions and take responsibility for them. Nothing stands in your way – only you. Remember that. Remember that always.”
― Vyrgo Black, Under

“Tempora Mutantur”  (Latin) speaks to how time passes and the changes that is wrought.  We have all had to go through changes, many of the changes, we are asked to make… ok, forced to make… comes about through loss of some kind.  Those forced changes leave us bent to our knees asking why, what is the reason, and why life can be so danged hard?  We are called to accept a new reality for ourselves.  It calls for absolute surrender rather than wish things could be the way they were.  It cannot ever be what it was.  We are left with broken parts of our life, bankrupt of feelings, and, sometimes, in what we would say was the worst emotional pain we have ever felt.  We are learning that there can not be great sorrow without great love nor great love without great sorrow.

We weep.  We must weep.  Although we are, somehow, trained or conditioned not to cry, we have to cry sweet tears of release and cleansing.  While we are conditioned to think of there being something wrong with crying, it is a proven fact that it is necessary to grieve in such a way.  Crying is about something being right.  If we do not fully express our sorrow, if we remain numb, it makes us numb to the teachings, the joy that comes in balance.  We clench up our heart, our breathing, every fibre of our being to simply get through it when what is required of us is to change, to open our hearts to the sorrow and to breathe through it like a mother giving birth must breathe through that pain.  After the grief, and time does not need to be exp[licit as we all have our own time to grieve, there is a peace that begins to settle and take root.  And we are made new: Changed, but new as grief changes us forever.

And, we are touched in the heart by the fingers of grief that leaves a wound that eventually loses its sharp edges.  Being human means to lose, I have discovered.  Being human also means there is much to bring us joy in that small things succor us and we become more grateful, perhaps. 

©Carol Desjarlais 2.5.24 

 

Book of Sorrows

 

 

"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair."
Old Chinese proverb

We know all about how grief can cause inflammation, joint pain, headaches, stomach problems, lower immune system, cause heart problems, sleep problems, coping negatives.  But the toll on body can be eclipsed by the toll emotionally.  We can get lost in the sorrow, stay at that grieving space, and wallow in it because it takes too much work to crawl out from under the weight of grief.  Sometimes we use the excuse that, with that perpetual sorrow, we are honoring that person we have lost.  There is no timeline to sorrow.  Each loss is different.  Each loss takes healing work.  If we do not do the work, we are, in some way, crippled.

It is said that research has found it takes about 12 months to stabilize after loss.  If it stays as excruciating, and disabling, either physically, intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually, then it becomes complicated grief.  We are left in no man’s land of persistent longing, withdrawn, unable to find who we are since that mighty blow and change of loss. 

There are so many levels of grief, so many kinds of grief, so many ways to react to grief.  But typically, grief runs its course but there are those who might stay stuck in unresolved grief where one is overwhelmed, at a lost with coping strategies, in denial, allowing oneself to get lost in the grief.  It is in the second year that the real work on grief begins and most people will begin that work in order to get relief from the side effects of loss. 

Ignoring it does not make it go away.  Denial does not make it go away.  Substituting comfort food, drugs, alcohol, behavior, does not make it go away.  We can become numb.  But as we stuff the sorrow, it grows exponentially, and we fall into more and more discomfort and we lose our balance and harmony of life.  We can go into Grief Fog.  I call it grief brain” where we stumble, drop things, put things in wrong places, knock things off, cannot think clearly or make decisions.  We can move into more and more isolation as we dwell on the past and then there is the anxiety.  The anxiety is all about losing another loved one. 

There are triggers that expound the anguish and anxiety surrounding the grief process.  Our grief gets complicated with past traumas right back to childhood, if we have not done any healing work for those times we have been traumatized. Those already afflicted with depression are in danger of sinking more deeply into it and it becomes complicated even further.   I did not want to go back home at first because I would have to face those who would speak of it, of her, and I had not dealt, yet, with being the mother of 6 not 7.  We can’t sleep, or sleep only small segments of time.  Our blood pressure and blood sugars can rise due to stress.  Our hearts are broken and vulnerable. We have to begin the work it takes to crawl out from under the heavy wet blanket of sorrow. 

We need to find a circle of friends who ‘get it’ and who know how to nurture and comfort for they too, know sorrow by its name.  Go get professional help by talking to a counsellor or taking meds that will help hold you for a short time until you can do the work.  Block any stress that comes from outside ourselves.  Try to eat right, relax, take long walks, keep busy at something but also rest.  There are many rites and ceremonies available.  Or, you could begin a new ceremony for self.  Find one or do one you know of, for yourself.  Keep telling yourself that this is not a loss, this is a change.  Life is constantly changing.  That is what life is… transformation, day by day, week by week, month by month ,,, even second by second.  Some changes are just more powerful than others. 

Grief is leaving us with an open book for our future.  We make of it what it will be.  “One day you will wake up and the anguish will be gone.” – unknown quote

Book Of Sorrows

Without you
I would not have had such sad poetry
And perhaps that
Would have been the saddest thing
Of all

You are the swallowed shard of glass
Striping lining from entry to exit

You, my beautiful blossom,
Unfolding hope
One pure petal at a time

And I watched you curl up your edges
While I fisted you with death grip
With one hand
And wrote poetry
With the other
For I had no words
To define this kind of dying

What silly stanzas would I have penned
Had not this hand held
The beat of your heart
In its palm?

Sadness winnows its way
From that hard nut
where love should have resided
And perennially produced
Such beautiful buds of words

Now, they are wept from places
That carry cell-deep memory
Of that last longing look
Of you
As you took my lovely potential
For sweet simple lines

I now write poetry
That is tear-shaped petals of Pitiful
And held
Pressed in a heavy book
Called
The Joy of Sorrow

©Carol Desjarlais 2015