I just realized it is the one-month anniversary of my birthday. That is a bit odd to take note of, except that it gives me a chance to show you the cake that Kate made for me. It was a flourless chocolate cake, which she had baked before, but the recipe was for a smaller springform pan than I had here. So she increased the recipe and made a giant cake, considering how rich it was. All the 15 people who were here for our anniversary party (which was also my birthday party) could not finish it, and it was enjoyed by several liberal-minded people for another week, as breakfast.
The girls did not want ask the person whom they were celebrating where they might find birthday candles, so they made do with my cute (giant) gumdrop-shaped candles they discovered. That made me happy remembering the cakes I made for the children when they were young, and very often decorated with gumdrop candies, because that was special and very easy.
It also made me think it funny the way things have evolved, that I keep birthday candles in a different place, clear across the house, from all the other candles.
Son Pathfinder drove down from Oregon for his job, so he stopped also to see me at the beginning of this Bright Week, and helped quite a bit by mowing the lawn that hasn’t quite died, doing a pool maintenance task with me, and listening/talking for a while about his father and how our lives have changed. My children are my favorite people to talk to these days.
He brought some mail, including a card from Granddaughter Annie with a gift tucked inside, this bit of seeded paper she had “made at Bible study to represent spreading God’s love.” She also wrote to invite me to drive north to their house next month to see the exhibit that includes some photography from a class she is taking. I am not making firm commitments that far ahead, but I feel the love pulling me.
The snowball bush is hanging over the pool, the wisteria over the patio arbor. It was all warm and welcoming when our old friend Ken came by this week – also in town for work – and we sat out there for a visit. He said he hadn’t been in our back yard since he was baptized in our pool….we didn’t try to figure out how long ago that was! I told him about how I am planning to have the pool removed, and he looked over the equipment and discussed the job I need to get bids for. He owns a pool himself so he is a good person to talk to.
In addition to family and friends who are ready with long hugs and all kinds of practical assistance, I’ve appreciated the writings of Father Alexis Trader, who recently posted a series on grief. His descriptions of the feelings of grief are true to my own experience, as he empathizes with those who suddenly find ourselves in “this disorienting new universe that no longer feels like home.”
aloe saponaria
Here is an example of how that is playing out here: I don’t feel like gardening. In my whole life I have only gardened as a partner with my husband, and it’s as though I don’t yet know how to do it as the person I am now. I haven’t planted a seed or a tomato start, and I’m just not thrilled about any of that. It’s a good thing that so much of the garden will keep going on its own and feed me with its beauty. All these photos are from this afternoon – I guess I still know how to take pictures on my own!
About the process of grief Fr. Alexis says, “…one thing is consistent: grief is a journey that if it is successful is resolved in acceptance. The fathers also use the metaphor of a journey referring to a longer, spiritual journey in which the briefer journey of grief can be situated.”
This image of a journey helps me to keep going. I know I am not at the end of my life’s journey, and I may be on the road for many more years. This short trail called Grief which I am facing now, though, is the steepest hike I’ve ever encountered. I wish I didn’t have to go this way, but it’s on the route my Father has laid out for me, so “best get on with it.” No doubt the trick will be the same old strategy: One foot in front of the other. More from Father Alexis:
Grief indeed is a journey but the holy fathers demonstrate that if we can learn to open our spiritual eyes, we will see that it need not be a solitary journey filled solely with darkness and pain, but it can also be a passage of transformation from death to life. After all, for the fathers, “death is not death, but only a kind of emigration and translation from the worse to the better, from earth to heaven, from men to angels, archangels, and the One who is the Lord of angels and archangels” (Saint John Chrysostom, Letter to a Widow).
Somehow the stages of grief, whatever they may be or in whatever order they may occur, need to be situated within the greater journey from earth to heaven, the journey that the departed in Christ have already completed. We are all “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). The experience of grief brings this truth home. When we accept it fully, we can look to “a better country, that is heavenly” (Hebrews 11:16), to “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10), to that Jerusalem on high that has “no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelations 21:23). That is the place where stages and phases are past, where acceptance is complete, and where we are truly at home with those who are departed, there where “Christ is all and in all” (Colossians 3:11).
This morning I attended Bright Saturday Liturgy and was freshly struck by some of the prayers that I have prayed every week for almost a decade now. Like the prayer that we might “complete the remaining time of our life in peace and repentance.” Yes, that is the journey I am on. One thing is needful.
As I went out the door afterward, Ambrose, who is a drummer as well as a bell-ringer, began to ring the Paschal bells with gusto, and their brilliance filled the air of the quiet neighborhood to remind all the humans and animals that it’s not just another humdrum day, because Christ is risen!
Death is working in all of us. Last week death, by means of cancer, parted me from my husband, and I am now a widow. But the separation is not absolute, because Mr. Glad may be more alive than ever, to which truth the scriptures testify by the words of Christ Himself, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Nor will he and I be separated for long; we will meet in the Resurrection:
buttercups
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (I Thessalonians)
blue-eyed grass
I do comfort and console myself with these realities, while feeling the equally real tearing apart of me and my “other half,” our souls and bodies having been intertwined like a ball of string that is really two cords so closely tangled you can’t identify which strand you are seeing in any part of the thing. If one string is pulled out of the ball, just how misshapen and odd will it be? That’s what I don’t know, and what scares me.
Common Meadowfoam
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children…
Every member of our family has received huge amounts of grace and joy during the last weeks, and especially in the days leading up to the funeral, which was last Saturday. One friend remarked how sweet it is to die in springtime, the season of new beginnings.
On Sunday afternoon two daughters took me up into the hills for a walk among the oaks with their tiny new leaves, and to see the first wildflowers coming out. It was a stroll, not a hike, because all of us were quite spent from all the emotion and the activity. And one of us, daughter Pippin, was 9+ months pregnant, so we weren’t attempting a fitness walk.
oak leaves
I took a lot of pictures, falling easily back into my old self’s delight in seeing the glories of Creation and making memories of them to prolong the experience. We saw at least two flowers that even Pippin didn’t know the names of; I will try to come back later and tell you, if I find out what they are.
Upon our return to the house the dear baby, whether on his own or by the promptings of his heavenly Father I don’t know, decided the time was right to make his arrival. Someone noted that he is an obedient child from the start, waiting until his parents had laid his grandfather to rest before taking center stage himself. That evening we welcomed a new man-child into the family, whom I will call Jamie.
Jamie also showed love to his grandmother by being born in this county instead of waiting one more day until he would have been back in his home town. Not only I, but his two aunties were able to be present when he came swiftly into the light and into our arms. Among other good names, he was given that of his grandfather whom he had just missed in passing.
It’s all too wonderful and mysterious and splendid, don’t you think? It’s Springtime.
While the Thanksgiving dinner was cooking, I was surprised to have so many opportunities for my lap to be piled with two or three grandchildren. They were “honking” my nose, and later switched to “ringing” my ears. Is everyone familiar with this game? If someone squeezes your nose, you say “honk!” with every squeeze. With the ears, they pull, and you say, “Ding ding ding!”
The younger grandchildren also liked to have attention from their older cousins or aunts and uncles, as in being toted by a tall cousin also wearing plaid (90% of the males wore plaid shirts that day), but on a regular basis the two 2-year-olds seemed to just need a Grandma Lap where they could escape from the noise and get some peace and quiet.
The day after Thanksgiving Soldier and Joy were off to cut a Christmas tree on public lands (permit cost $10) so some of the rest of us went with them.
It was a way to maximize the time our distantly scattered family could spend together, though it still came out too too short. If the holiday had to come to an end, we were pleased that it happened in the forest with us all smelling the freshly rain-soaked and piney air.
she had “made at Bible study to represent spreading God’s love.” She also wrote to invite me to drive north to their house next month to see the exhibit that includes some photography from a class she is taking. I am not making firm commitments that far ahead, but I feel the love pulling me.
to figure out how long ago that was! I told him about how I am planning to have the pool removed, and he looked over the equipment and discussed the job I need to get bids for. He owns a pool himself so he is a good person to talk to.
This morning I attended Bright Saturday Liturgy and was freshly struck by some of the prayers that I have prayed every week for almost a decade now. Like the prayer that we might “complete the remaining time of our life in peace and repentance.” Yes, that is the journey I am on. One thing is needful.
ised to have so many opportunities for my lap to be piled with two or three grandchildren. They were “honking” my nose, and later switched to “ringing” my ears. Is everyone familiar with this game? If someone squeezes your nose, you say “honk!” with every squeeze. With the ears, they pull, and you say, “Ding ding ding!”
Gladsome Lights 