Message to Myself

• This evening I have been wandering through previous years’ blog posts hoping to call forth my Muse again.  You know, I used to actually write, not simply recounting the events of the day, but truly write.  I am hoping, and formulating a discipline for myself, to return to that frame of mind in the coming year.
• The past week I have been missing Karen a tremendous amount, a hurting amount at times.  We were cousins by blood, but sisters – soul mates, even – by heart.
• I stumbled across the following post on my original blog from September 2009, a few short months after Karen’s passing.  Stumbled?  Was drawn to without conscious intention?  Whatever the manner in reaching it, I am sharing it below for it is indeed a message to myself tonight. 

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If we live long enough, we will lose someone.  I’m talking about losing someone to death, the loss when another soul departs this Earth.

If you’re reading this, you have lost someone, sometime.  It happens.

What do you do?  Most people grieve, rage at the Universe perhaps, and finally, hopefully, be able to remember the departed with fondness.  One learns this is the Cycle of Life and one moves on . . . always remembering the person who is no longer with us, but still . . . moving on with Life.

What about the other folks?  The ones who cannot get past that first stage of mourning, of loss, of emptiness, of dependence on the one gone, of weaving the departed one into the fabric of their own life through constant talking of them and not being able to recalibrate their own existence . . . instead basing their world on the soul departed.

Yes, I know we all deal with loss in our own way.  I’m not saying what is right for one person is right for another in this process.

Still, it seems such a waste of existence to be so wrapped up in, so still-clinging to, one who has been dead for a number of years.  Seems like the person still here is missing so much of the vibrancy, the texture, the colors, the realization of a full life for themselves.  Do all their friends tolerate or enjoy the constant referencing of everything to the deceased?  Does it become tiresome to them and perhaps distressing if they have recently lost someone themselves?

Does this result in a rather morose and depressed individual?  Someone who is insecure in their own right, unable to make their own way in the world, unable to even hold down a job?

I would imagine this occurs in varying degrees.  Perhaps the person can perform on a basic functional level and appear to have gotten past the loss and yet still be mourning on an internal level.  We all hear about the remaining partner dying not long after their spouse after a long-term marriage.

If someone through the course of an eight-hour day mentions the departed at least once every hour and expresses their own existence in relation to the departed . . . can this be healthy?  This lamenter comes across as being sorrowfully depressed and, quite frankly, the listener can eventually feel bombarded and pummeled by so much negative energy; too much of “poor little me.”

Do we not owe the memory of the departed the honor of living a full life?  If one believes in an everlasting spirit of the departed, do we not owe them the right to be free?  By not keeping their spirit so close to us that it is restricting them from moving on to being fully at rest in the Hereafter?

Step outside your own sorrow.  If not for yourself but for your love of the departed, let them be free.

Let go.

Perhaps my viewpoint comes from being a strong person.  Oh yes, I have experienced losses.  I have mourned, cried, raged, lost my faith and reclaimed it, known that life would never be the same without the person and, yet, stumbled on through the haze, the fog, the sorrow . . . coming out on the other side knowing Birth, Life and Death are all part of our journey on this earthly plane.  

Is it a spiritual faith that allows one to come to terms with loss?  Is it being tough-skinned?  Is it being a survivor?  Is it being a Warrior?  Is it just being human?

I certainly do not profess to have the answers.  I feel for those who cannot let go, who yet cling to the departed.  My personal history causes me to feel some impatience with these people for allowing so many of the joys of each day flutter by without reaching out and grasping some happiness for themselves, clinging to that happiness as tightly as they cling to the memory of their lost ones.

Each day is a gift, not to be squandered.  I have recently lost my beloved Karen.  I miss her more than I can express; however, the pain eases just a bit each day.  I can call her memory up now and not be sorrowful but smile instead.  She was so full of life, laughter and faith and we shared so much of that . . . I carry on now in a joyful life, laughter in my home and heart, and my faith restored.  I like to think she watches over me . . . that she is by my side when I need strength . . . that she gets a silly laugh when I do something goofy.  I still talk to her . . . when I hear the chirp of a tree frog in the evenings I say, "Hiya cuz, whatcha into?  What’s happenin’?  I’m doing good.  See ya!"   Feel her presence?  Yes, definitely, but not as often as during the days immediately following her death.  Letting go; letting her go.  Instead of clinging, I try to honor her memory by living the way I did before she left, as I know she would want, and as I must . . . for each day I am here are a few more additional hours I have been blessed with since that day in 2002 when I met my own mortality.  I consider every day since that time to be “overtime,” to just be time I have been given as a bonus, an extension until my own “expiration date” comes up on the calendar of Life.

Should we not be at peace, loving, laughing and living to our fullest as we walk this Earth?

Thanks for stopping by!