grieving

Like cloud joining cloud.

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Loss Too Deep for Words

When all that seems real is lost,
where words blur and fail,
where intention cannot reach the depth,
where heart hungers
and soul starves.

Only the warmth in the heart of another
finds the pulse,
like cloud joining cloud,
a delicate meeting
before language.

Seeing and seen,
no grandeur, no pretence.

Not words.
Not healing.
Not intention.

Not reviving.
Not demanding.
Not offering.
Not outside, just there, stepped inside.
Rare.

Once isolated, unreachable,
now golden sun emerging, real.

Only that which is real
can touch that which is real.

Nothing survives
that is not love.

  • By Tony Bisson

(Tony is a bereaved father. He wrote this poem expressing what being in the Circle of Rememberance means to him.)

Love is …

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Her name is Devi. I see her every day. She works in the big house next door. We smile at each other when we meet accidentally. I see her in the garden, watering their plants, taking out rubbish bins, sweeping dead leaves. I see her in the courtyard, putting things out to dry in the sun – red chilies, black pepper and coffee beans. We have no common language except our smiles.

My neighbour says she was born in this village and has hardly ever left. She has been a house-help for decades. She doesn’t have a phone. She doesn’t like dogs. She doesn’t talk much. She has no teeth and loves drinking coffee. She takes Fridays off. Her husband died a long time ago. Her son moved to some big town some distance away. Her granddaughter goes to architecture school. That’s all I know.

She is a woman. A wife. A mother. Working. Making ends meet. She has suffered losses of various kinds and she smiles often, especially when someone smiles at her. She is looking after herself the best she can.

On a closer look, she is like me. We have a lot in common. While our bodies are materially different, we are nourished by the same air and the same Earth. The same sun and stars shine upon us, and we come from the same soil. We both wear green glass bangles.

My thoughts, feelings and stories are possibly different from hers, but we are both aware of our respective experiences. What is it that’s aware of all this? If my mind would journey back from the stuff of life to the source of its knowing, where would it find itself? In a field of awareness. We both have that field in common. Each of our minds shares the same awareness. The aspiration of the mind is to be relieved of all the limitations of its perception. That is why my heart is happy to see her in the mornings. While I respect our differences at a relative level, I hold a deep understanding that we are essentially, the same infinite being.

The experience of love is that intuition of our shared being with all Beings! No two. Only one. If each one of us could take this understanding into every situation, I wonder what kind of place our world would be.

(Inspired by the Advaita, or Non-Duality teachings of Rupert Spira)

New things.

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They opened her sister’s tummy and took out a thing that looked like a red chili. Their mother was very worried, but the doctor said ‘all went well’. She was so relieved, she brought her a blue silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins. She had managed to buy a nearly new one for pennies at the village market from a heap of random goods piled up on the roadside.

New things never happened to Amita. She was the fifth of six kids. One girl. 3 boys. Her. One more boy. Most of her childhood was spent in boy’s clothes. When she was seven, she could finally wear her sister’s tattered old frocks. All she wanted was something new.

Amita started complaining of tummy aches that were so strong she had to miss school. She hardly ate anything and became scrawnier every week. She looked sallow. Her parents took her from one doctor to the next. They were exasperated. Finally, the fifth doctor said they would have to open her tummy and look inside. Amita’s dream was coming true. She smiled inwardly. Her operation was scheduled for Monday.

On Sunday night, in her hospital bed she remembered when her aunt had come to visit from Bangalore, she had brought one plastic doll for the girls to share. Its golden hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her head was round with two very round brown eyes. When you lay her on her back, her eyelids closed over. Thick long black lashes touched her pink cheeks. On standing her up, the lids mechanically snapped open. Her elder sister claimed the doll all for herself. When no one was looking, Amita would hold the doll like a baby, rock it from side to side and stroke its cheeks.

On Monday morning, she was super-excited. As she was going off to sleep, the blue silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins danced in front of her eyes.

When she woke up, Amita had a huge red gash right down the middle of her tummy. It was so painful that she could hardly breathe but Amita didn’t care. She waited for her mum. When the visiting hour arrived, her mum brought her a gift – a red silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins. It was even more beautiful than the blue one. Amita felt victorious. She had a new thing, all for herself.  She could hardly wait to show it to the smiley nurse who routinely looked after her.

That night, Amita slept peacefully in her hospital bed, clutching on to her silk purse.

The next morning, the smiley nurse came in with a thermometer and placed the tip of it under Amita’s tongue with a smile. She then started writing her notes. Just then, Amita pulled out the purse from under her pillow and held it up for her to see, her eyes popping out but unable to speak.

“Oh! For me? How kind! Thank you.” said the nurse and received the purse with both her lovely hands.

                                                ****    ****    ****

Resource: This story is inspired by an anecdote from the book “Nonviolent Communication. A language of Life.‘ by Marshall B. Rosenberg. PhD. In Chapter 4, he addresses the heavy cost of unexpressed feelings about unmet needs.

The day is the day.

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(Credit:: Saagar Naresh. Age 12. Art Homework.)

It’s an ordinary day that starts as the sun peeps from somewhere behind the horizon and ends as it vanishes somewhere behind another at different times for different people on the globe scattered all over these continents everywhere. It is not a singular day as it claims to be.

It’s not my enemy and yet it circles around each year as a reminder of what happened as if I need reminding. It’s not my enemy even though it feels like one. It’s just another day, innocent and ignorant, asking me to sit down. Have another cup of tea.

It was nameless and inconspicuous until it arrived hiding a deep darkness within its light wearing the face of a sacred place and a robe of expansion and growth and holding a promise of transformation before I knew what that meant, unlocking the path to an invisible destination.

This endless path covered in thorns and nettles with no alternative or detour must be trodden with bare feet. It is essential they bleed.

To my desperate open eyes the destination remains invisible. When I let them close I glean a faint ray of hope.

Comings and goings.

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As usual, I sit here at my table by the window of my study, admiring the autumnal trees standing in the park across the road, looking for inspiration to write. They have been my encouraging companions for years. The difference is that today might be the last time I write sitting here.

Early autumn has cycled back again. The fullness of the moon has synchronized with the one eleven years ago. The comings and goings of the seasons, of the world carry on as usual. Moving away from this home to live elsewhere was unthinkable at one time. But now, the heart has settled. It knows things it did not before. It carries a treasure of love and memories. Saagar lives in this heart now. He cannot be left behind. He is with me everywhere.

This, our home is ‘under offer’ now. A young couple wants to buy it for the same reasons we did twenty years ago. A quiet street. A diverse neighborhood. A garden. Parks and good schools nearby. Last few days of packing up have been intense. Things that have surfaced from deep recesses – a handheld Nintendo Gameboy carefully wrapped in its purple case, a proper Canon camera, one black sock with TUESDAY on it in yellow bunched together with another with SATURDAY printed on it in green.

I know not to trust my memory. It often fails me. It misremembers things, puts them in the wrong order. Omits some entirely. It plays tricks, causes confusion. Forgets what I want to hold on to and remembers what I’d rather forget. Luckily, the job of the heart does not include remembering but feeling – how it feels to sit here looking out the window and then at a blank page, to fold a much-loved photo in silk and cover it in more soft clothing, to look at an empty room and see it filled with light, to know it’s okay. I can trust this thing in the center of my chest. It’s all okay.