As I prepared for that day, I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. It helped me walk through and try to find peace when my heart felt like it was being shredded to pieces; it helped me to listen, really listen to the wisdom of Ahnung as she guided me through this Final Walk. I share some old writings as I learned to make friends with Grief, and I write a new one today on the 2 year anniversary ... Sweet Ahnung, you are always, always in my heart:
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Anticipatory Grief: Making Friends (December 27, 2012)
Grief walks up to your front door. It’s not time yet, you say. Yet she keeps on walking. She walks past the rose bushes in your front yard. She walks past the boulders you’ve carefully laid in her path. She walks past the detours you’ve planted to steer her around you and away from you. This time She is focused. And the rain is pouring and thunder is booming as the earth shakes and vibrates.
“Please,” She says, “I need shelter. I need to come in -- if only for a moment. “
Reluctantly, I let Grief in. I offer her a cup of warm tea. We sit by the fireplace.
“Why have you come?” I ask. “It’s not yet time.”
“It’s time. I am by myself tonight. Tomorrow I may not be alone. I may bring thousands of Me and there will be nothing you can do. We will break down your door. We will drown you. “
She pauses for a moment.
She strokes my dog Ahnung.
“Sit with Me now.”
We share stories. We cry. We laugh. Ahnung lays between us. A calm breeze permeates the room.
“It’s time for me go,” Grief says.
“But we have so much more to share,” I say.
She smiles. She rises, and Ahnung walks alongside her. Ahnung stops at the front door as Grief turns around to face me.
“I will be return. I may come alone, or I may bring a friend. Now, go be with Ahnung.”
We melt into the breeze coming through the open door.
Anticipatory Grief Visits Again (Mar. 3, 2013)
You came to visit me again last night.
Most days I see the clear blue skies, I catch my breath when I look up into the night skies, and I walk with my feet planted solidly on our earth.
Is it too much to ask for the World? For the Universe? For eternity …. For strings of days to never end with my sweet Ahnung? Is it too much to ask for Cancer to step to the back of the line? Is it too much to ask for the Love, the Wisdom, the Resilience, the brightness of Ahnung to shine on forever?
Dear Grief, I respect you. I honor you. I know you have a place in this world and in this universe. I know it’s not my place to negotiate with you. Yet when the earth shakes below my feet and when the ground moves and the tremors knock me off center, I desperately grab onto Ahnung. Last night, it was just an earth tremor. How many more tremors will I walk through with Ahnung? How many more tremors can the ground beneath us withstand until the inevitable quake on the horizon arrives? How many more tremors will I be blessed to endure before the ground beneath us splits open and swallows Ahnung? And will I be swallowed too? Will I be swallowed by the pain of You, dear Grief, as I desperately hold onto my soul, my Ahnung, as she slips away from me?
How? How do I accept, with grace, this Final Walk?
Grief looks me in the eye.
“When the earth shakes, and the ground beneath you falters, look up into the skies. Look into Ahnung’s eyes. Look up at the North Star. I gift you with the tremors.”
“Ahnung is in your heart. You are One. She is in your blood. She is in your bones. She is in the Earth. She is in the Air you breath. She is the Fire inside of you. She is in the oceans, the rivers and lakes, the rocks. When she is gone, she will live on in you.”
I hold onto Ahnung as the earth beneath us stops shaking. I bury my face in her thick neck. I hold her. I hold her as tightly as I can. I hold her again.
Anticipatory Grief … Here to Stay (August 24, 2013)
Grief knocks on my door again. Ahnung greets Her at the door. This time she arrives with bags in hand.
“It is time.”
She opens the door, takes my hand and leads me outside.
We get down on our knees. She places one hand over Ahnung’s heart and one hand over my heart.
And she repeats to me what she said months earlier:
“Ahnung is in your heart. You are One. She is in your blood. She is in your bones. She is in the Earth. She is in the Air you breath. She is the Fire inside of you. She is in the oceans, the rivers and lakes, the rocks. When she is gone, she will live on in you.”
I look into Ahnung’s eyes.
Grief takes my hand, “It is time. We must begin the walk.”
In the dark, we are guided by the north star and the slow, steady beat of our hearts.
My old friend Grief visits again - August 25, 2015
Grief knocks on my door again.
I let her in.
“Let’s sit on the patio.”
We reminisce. The summer breeze brushes again my skin, and I know Ahnung is with us.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you” ~ Rumi.
I ask my old friend Grief, ‘Will you ever stop visiting me?’
There is only Silence as Grief looks gently into my eyes, reaching into my soul.
My friend Grief is Ahnung. My friend Grief is a doorway. Ahnung is on the other side, and in the moments she comes to visit me, it is a gift for me to step through the door and to Be with Ahnung.
I answer my own question, “Dear Grief, you are always welcome in our Home.”
I visit with Ahnung. We walk. We are simply there with each other.
“Thank you Grief for the Gift of visiting hours to the Spirit world.”
She smiles as she gets up, and as quickly as She arrived, She disappears … until her next visit.
"Go and find yourself first
So you can also find Me.
Don't run away from grief , o soul
Look for the remedy inside the pain.
because the rose came from the thorn
and the ruby came from a stone."
~ Rumi
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| Photo by Sarah Beth Photography |
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| Photo by Sarah Beth Photography |
This tugged at my heart, Marilou. Being physically separated from our best friends is often unbearable. We should always remember that they are still with us despite the visits from our grief. That can be difficult at times. The important part is that we shared a portion of our lives with such amazing beings. THAT can never be taken from us.
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