“You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will go. Loved ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually, or not so gradually, strip away everything that it can strip away. Waking up means facing this reality with open eyes and no longer turning away.
But right now, we stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realizing this is the key to unspeakable joy. Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. This may sound trivial, obvious, like nothing, but really it is the key to everything, the why and how and wherefore of existence. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude. Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.” -Jeff Foster
I first came across this over a week ago and bookmarked it for safe keeping I knew I’d want to come back and read it. Little did I know just how much I’d need to re-read that this week.
Let me just put this out here now: Fuck this week. This is me giving this week the finger. Fuck this fucking week. Yeah, I know. It’s not very ladylike, or zen, or proper, or a thousand other things that I’m “supposed” to be. But I’m angry. I’m angry that my little sister is dead. I know it’s not logical or reasonable to feel anger, but I do.
It’s easier for me to feel angry about her death than to feel sad. I don’t know how to mourn. I don’t know how to allow myself to feel sadness, or better yet, I don’t know how to express it. For so many years, I was taught to keep it inside. In the movie A League of Their Own Tom Hanks’ character says, “there’s no crying in baseball”. My ex-husband believed that there’s no crying. Period. Never. If I cried I got sucker punched, and if that made me cry more, I’d get punched again. Needless to say, one learns not to cry pretty quickly.
I lived in Hawaii when my much-beloved grandmother died. I got the phone call from my dad early in the morning, just before I was due to head off to work. I was devastated, but my (then) husband said that I still had to go to work because I might not get paid if I didn’t. So I went to work, and I didn’t cry. I didn’t even say anything until the end of the day. No one could understand why I was at work. I wasn’t “allowed” to fly back home for the funeral because it was “too expensive”. Along the same line, my son took off two days this week to be with his grandparents. He is incredibly close to them, as well as his aunt. Today he was told that he wouldn’t be paid for those days as bereavement leave pay is only for the death of “close family members”. Here’s the kicker: The president of the company that my son works for is none other than his own father. Sadly, some people never change.
So… I’m not so good at crying. Two of my (female) co-workers told me recently that they cry at least every week. I was shocked. I know some find crying to be cathartic, but I still find it incredibly painful, and almost impossible to do in front of anyone else. What can I say? I’m working on it. At least I’m aware of how messed up it is. I need to treat myself with as much loving kindness as I would everyone else. Thank you, Pema Chodron. 🙂
A few good things that have come from this: I am learning to let myself feel and express sadness, I’m being more aware of treating myself with loving kindness, and I continue to be grateful for who and what I have in the here and now.
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“Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.” -Eckhart Tolle
I’ll share the link to my sister’s obituary here.
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