Bother

One thing at a time... I tell my clients. One thing at a time... I tell myself.

I thought I’d written today

Then realized

That was yesterday.

The grief has begun its way

Into my head.

Oh

There it is.

I thought I’d escaped it.

Oh bother

I think

Like Winnie the Pooh

Even like Eeyore.

This timing is unfortunate.

The garbage and recycling trucks

Make their way through the neighborhood.

The cats on opposite chairs

Glare at each other.

So far I have decorated

By hanging a cowbell on the front door,

Filled a large glass vase

With nuts

Even perched a reindeer

On top.

That’s it.

I thought I’d written.

Now I have.

Instead

While I waited for a client who never showed, I had a conversation with fresh grief.  This must be what I was meant to do.  And now I am already on page 10 of a book it would never have occurred to me to read, were it not for the morning ride with my daughter.  I wonder what the day will bring... instead.

She doesn’t show up

Instead

Instead

I find other reasons

I am here.

It seems Thursday

Is completely reordered:

A text message here,

A book recommendation there,

A conversation

With grief

One month lost

And counting.

The yellow lily just begins

Out my window

Against the gray sky.

She doesn’t show,

Doesn’t call,

Doesn’t email.

Instead 

There are other reasons

I am here today.

Some of them

I know.

This is another day

Another prayer resource from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.  It is found hidden away in the additional prayer section.  I remember a seminary classmate pointing it out years ago, talking about how useful it had been in her hospital Clinical Pastoral Education the previous summer.  

In the midst of illness and grief and tragedy, whatever we do in these times, let us do them consciously, and with the Spirit of Jesus:

This is another day, O LORD, I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready LORD, for whatever it will be. If I am to stand up, Help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, Help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, Help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, Let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and Give me the Spirit of Jesus, Amen.~From The Book of Common Prayer (1979)

Keep watch

There is a prayer in the service of Compline (bedtime prayers) in the Book of Common Prayer.  It is one of the prayers I used to pray with my children while putting them to bed.  I still say it when putting myself to bed, particularly when a whole host of tragedy seems to have taken charge.  Here is the prayer:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

And my prayer:

Keep watch, dear Lord,

Every time we are reminded:

Grief and loss and tragedy prevail.

Keep watch, dear Lord,

When the ground heaves and swells

And we

Heave and swell

With it.

Keep watch

When skies open up,

Raindrops pour down

Like oh so many tears.

Keep watch

Keep watch

Oh please

Keep watching

When blows to the safety

Of those we love,

Blows to the safety

Of those we have yet

To love

Rain down.

Keep watch while we aim

To catch our breath,

And then

To know

What*s next.

Grief

When I opened my email this morning, I found that a neighbor had acknowledged my skill in grief counseling.   While I knew he was grieving, in truth I have not communicated with him since the occasion of the source of his grief.  I was surprised.  When I took out the trash, he was walking by.  So, after the fact, I made good on his recommendation.  It remains surprising to me how God continues to work through so many things.

In my own grief

About oh so many things,

A side friend acknowledges me

On LinkedIn

For my skill

In grief counseling.

He is one I have never counseled

For grief

Or otherwise.

In truth I felt guilty

About not reaching out to him

In his current loss.

As I took out the trash this morning

He walked by.

We engaged

In mutual

Grief counseling.

Usually such opportunities

Do not line up

After the fact.

Usually opportunities

Do not present themselves

Quite so neatly.

So many ways to measure time

Some days it is easier to be hopeful, some days:  despairing.  Both are reality.  We are in the middle of Epiphany. We are halfway to Lent.  A young person we know faces a bone marrow transplant.  A widow we know grieves.  Depression hits others. The children still sing outside my door.  The sun has almost melted the snow.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Psalm 90:12, BCP 1979

There are so many ways

To measure time.

The snow has almost melted

Again.

The grass shows green underneath.

It is almost the end of January,

The middle of Epiphany,

Halfway to Lent.

There are so many ways

To measure time,

So many ways to construct

Our days.

Today I hold the sunlight

It melts the snow.

Today I hear the children

They laugh and thud outside my door.

Today I consign so many

To God*s gaze,

Doctor*s care.

I contemplate those I love:

They fight or embrace

Depression,

Bone marrow transplants,

Grief.

So many ways to measure time.

So many ways to see our days.

Today I hold the sunshine

It melts the snow.

I hear the children.

Easter Friday, normal things

The disciples had gone back to their livelihood, the place where Jesus found them in the first place.  They had gone back to the old familiar ways.  When everything is upside down and inside out, we find comfort in doing normal things.  But even in doing normal things, the result is just not the same normal.  Put your nets out the other side of the boat is not normal advice, and having it bring in 153  fish where it seemed there were none... well that*s not normal either.  So Jesus makes them breakfast on the beach and they break bread and eat fish... and they begin to see a new normal. 

When things are topsy-turvy

Upside down

When we don*t know

What to think or do,

We seek out

Normal things:

That old familiar place

We used to fish,

The particular spot

On the edge of the reeds

We remember

From before.

The pull of knotted nets

Our hands and arms, shoulders and backs

Know well.

We keep each other company.

We seek out the normal things

We know so well,

We don*t even have to think.

We don*t have to think

About normal things,

Only hope

They might bring back life as we knew it:

Work and food and sleep,

Repeat.

Work and food and sleep.

Repeat.

We catch nothing all night

Try it another way,

The man offers, from the shore.

We throw the old familiar nets

Off the other side of the boat.

We knotted those nets in the sun

Once upon a time.

It seems so long ago now,

Time has a way of expanding

In times like these.

Topsy turvy upside down

Times like these.

We want to get our bearings

Seek out normal things.

Go back to what we knew once.

What we once knew well.

FISH

153 FISH

It*s Him.  It*s Him.  It*s Him.

He found us here.

Even here.

The Burial

In grief we are often entombed ourselves, like it seems the disciples were after Jesus* crucifixion and burial. 

The sense of smell is our only hard-wired (unmediated) sense.  I wonder what smells brought back the disciples* memories of Jesus.  Of course we know the rest of the story.  But they didn*t then.

Jesus is in the tomb

Bound and wrapped and sealed

Into place.

Officially positively

Dead.

The disciples are lost

Among themselves,

Entombed:

Denying, depressed,

One even dead and

Soon to be buried himself

In the potter*s field.

It is night and dark

And very damp.

No stars in the sky,

No moon.

No light at all.

The mixed scent of earth and myrrh

Lingers

Long after the stone

Is rolled into place.

Lost

Among themselves,

Lost in grief,

Still they breathe in blood and iron

Earth and myrrh

bread and wine.

Still

They remember water poured,

The final words.

Still the scent of earth mixed with myrrh

Sweet spices

And nard

lingers

And returns.

In Memoriam: Gardening with Mom

As part of Facebook, a number of us have replaced our profile picture with that of a flower which starts with the first letter of our first name.  Mine is a purple clematis.  Probably this reflection is a partial explanation.  

My experience is that grieving takes time, particularly when it is someone close (like a parent) .  Now, four years after Mom*s death, I feel like it*s a gift to me to be able to celebrate the places I knew and saw her to be truly alive.  I know God is holding her, and I know she, probably like any number of us will be, was hugely surprised after she died.

This summer

I will watch the yard come to life

With Mom.

On my knees I clip apart

The old clematis vines,

Trim them back so growth

Comes new.

I remember Mom*s green thumb.

Heck, all her fingers were green.

There was always green

When summer came.

The backyard bloomed pink and purple,

Orange and gold and white and blue.

I never knew what everything was called.

She did.

The backyard was one place

 Life was assured.

The garden beds rioted in color.

The mock orange smelled

Outrageously good.

She grew mint and chives

Next to the back door

For garnish.

The mother-daughter thing

We did not do well,

But flowers

Yes

Flowers she knew

Flowers she could offer freely.

When Jeff and I married in Boston.

She ordered flowers of every color

For the columns in the church,

For every table in that room

Overlooking the Charles River.

Now I remember the clematis:

Huge purple flowers

Trellised on the side of the garage.

The pillar in the front of my house

Blooms that same purple every year.

I remember

Her green fingers,

The surety of life

in the backyard.

I plan new places for clematis here,

On the other pillars,

In the backyard.

I plan and plant.

I remember.

After four years, it is good to remember.

Plenty of time from now to June

It feels as though I*m living in a time warp.  I could swear that it*s been at least a year or two since the seizure. And a year or two to go until June when I can drive, barring any new seizure.  Things look good for June.  Time is hurtling by for those around me.  For me it creeps and crawls.  Somehow, it feels like God has taken over all counting: the counting of days, the counting of clients.  Meanwhile, God is packing those same long days with gift after gift after gift, things I somehow hadn*t noticed, a few new things, maybe things that have been there all along. I guess I needed the extra minutes to notice.

Then there is the pile of dirt in the back yard, waiting.

Yesterday they came and edged the garden bed out front

Cleaned up the back.

It seemed early for the lawn people.

I planned to do it myself

But didn*t say it

Soon enough.

Last year*s thistle composted,

Maybe this year I will watch

a new singular plant

through the cycle.

The old fallen edges of the boxed garden

Cleared,

I will begin again

In the heap of dirt,

Plenty of time from now to June.

People talk time*s rush.

This year every minute has been expanded to two

Or three,

The days multiplied the same.

There is more

And less

To be done.

God has taken over

The naming of the hours

The Count.

Simply

I cannot depend on my own numbers.

I know there are hours and days

And months to go.

And the heap of dirt.

Plenty of time from now

To June.