The Comfort of the Desolate

Desolation

     Nature is disrespecting my grief. Twelve inches of rain chooses dry and forlorn September and has created a false Spring. 

I don't want it.

I squeeze my eyes shut and refuse the hope.

Still, though, my gaze is drawn to the dew on my Bermuda grass, as blue as a sleepy baby's eyelids;

the chill in the air finds my skin.

An immigration of every kind of fungi and mushroom has invaded the borders of my potted plants. They live.....and

I am stabbed again.

How can hope survive? 

How can the world ignore the tremendous disappearance of YOU?

                                                                 

How can the essence of YOU be reduced to just a measure of chemistry; how could the carbon in your cells disperse and reform and go back into the Earth, my son? I don't accept it. 

I can't.

     Yes, yes...I can imagine everything being "ONE" and visualize that you are now a part of all of nature;  the "Circle of Life".....bu that is just the light in the closet people turn on to scare away the monsters waiting there. They want me to shut up and feel better so that they can get on with life: so they can get back to their dinners and husbands, and children, and grandchildren, and jobs, and politics, and dirty dishes.

Sure, there may be some great big cosmic system at work; our souls may precede this life, and continue after.........

But not Today.

    Today I need  a grey sky;

A moaning gale;

Today I need dark, hopeless frost on barren trees.

I need empty, dusty fields.

I need wastelands.

Orwell.

Nietze.

Leonard Cohen.

You are gone.

You are gone.

You are gone.

And as cruel as this announcement seems, there is something more cruel. That's why I need howling winds across icy steppes and relentless and endless rolling seas. I need Nature to wrap her arms around me in agreement of the deep darkness of this. 

You are gone.

And I must stay.

I miss you Biggun. 

                          Momma

    

24

24

I couldn't write on your birthday, but I got through it somehow. Sometimes the only thing to do with pain is to look away for a bit and breath. 

At your memorial run, Augustine said he could see you behind me, your big arms holding me up. You were smiling down on me, he said. He said you would always take care of me. At first I didn't think I felt you, but I did feel strong and capable and the day went so well. Maybe it was your strength that flowed through me all morning. 

You or Source or God or Jesus.

Maybe all of you together,

A splint of sorts.

Remember Ralph Waldo Emerson's words about the sun?

                         "It shines and warms and lights us, and we have no curiosity to know why

                         this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, 

                         and mosquitoes, and silly people."

Well, maybe the good energy I felt come to me yesterday as the runners came and went in their little family groups and I stood alone without you there; the energy that kept me positive, warm, loving and whole was you. Perhaps you really are a part of Spirit; part of Source after all. As Rodney Crowell says, maybe its "God and Krishna and Minnie Pearl, too." Perhaps your essence has been poured into the sacred Vessel of all souls, and you really were there with arms around me. El Rey

This morning I am thinking of light and energy as I read Luke, and how Jesus called out the demons from a person as they shouted recognition of Him. As they shouted that He was the Son of God,  He willed them to leave, pulled them out and sent them away. It was significant that He ignored the shouts of truth from the mouths of evil....  Jesus wouldn't even allow the demons to proclaim to the crowd that He was the Son of God.

Why?

Lots of possible reasons,  but this came to me this morning as I read Luke.....

Evil thoughts can attach to my "truths", like a cancer cell attaches to a healthy one. Half truths....but nasty and confusing, they drag me under the water like a creature swimming beneath me in the deep that grabs my ankle and pulls me under. 

I am praying for God to pull the healthy part of my grief away from the foul and dying thoughts that might attach to my sorrow. I have no idea which of my mind-fucking thoughts are evil, as grief fogs my senses and weakens my heart. I know this:

I have these demon thoughts.

You had them too, Baby.

But they hold no sway,

As long as

We hold true to each other.

Recently, Pastor Carlos mused with me about the wonder of our strange and unique connection, you and I.  I told him I know you and I have known each other since the beginning of all things.

 

We came from the same star, I said.

He sidestepped my sacrilege, smiled and suggested to me that we were so connected for a reason, as Mother and son. We grieve as big as we love, he continued, and now I feel lost without you because the work is not done, the work of our two souls. 

He said maybe one of my purposes 

in the time I have left

 might be

 to pick up the gauntlet and continue our task; 

to keep leaching out these thoughts for us both,

 tied as our destinies are to each other,

 like twins that share one heart. 

I am to continue to raise my fist against the darkness

 and lift up my terror to God in healing

 for the both of us.

 Finish our work.

Your Mother says this is my pledge to you,

 my son,

 as I arm myself and chase down the dark lies

 that plague me\

and made you so weary...

So very very weary my love.

These lies ( and I know you know what they are),

 hold no sway over us anymore.

And may this be your birthday gift from me.

 

Love,

 Your Momma