Keeping the Dream

Sometimes something happens that just shakes me to the core, and I am reminded of not only the frailty of my humanity but of my convictions…until I remember the strength and power of both.

Today I need to remember.

This is a repost from 2005, but it speaks my heart today. I bring it up out of the archives to share with you, and to gently remind me…

I’m thankful for the love I had inside of me that enabled me to survive an abusive childhood.

I’m thankful for the innocence within each and every person that can never be hurt or destroyed…hidden from view, tucked deep away inside, perhaps, and forgotten, but never defiled, never damaged…no matter what damage may be done. Thankful this place of purity and innocence remains alive, an inexorable part of our being, and for our healing journey to rediscover and reconnect to that source of innocence.

I’m thankful for the moments of peace and beauty I experienced as a kid when nobody was looking…that one very late sunny afternoon in the Fall at the playground, when all the kids had gone home for dinner and I lingered to savor in the moment…how the golden light on the grass made the green more vibrant than anything I’ve ever seen…and in that moment the essence of beauty came forth and claimed me for its own.

I’m thankful for people who ask questions, who seek meaning and when they find none create their own…so beautiful and empowering….flying even with broken wings, lifted up and sustained by the currents of love, of spirit and conviction.

I’m thankful for friends…and enemies, both who support and reveal, who provide me opportunities for insight and growth.

I’m thankful for forgiveness…not only for others but for ourselves…not necessarily having to be given through us if we are not ready, but always accepted by us as we are healing. How wonderful not to be condemned to carry the burden of our pain and anger forever!

I’m thankful for each loving, vulnerable and brave heart, for the people who‚ share their stories, who have inspired me with their strength and vulnerability, and for the people who read who touch the lives of others even by their silence, their caring not being without impact and power.

I’m thankful for family, for my sister who faced her challenge with cancer with dignity and grace, for each moment I got to be with her, for the touch of her soft hands and the healing love of her smile, for my children and the reminder that life is always beginning anew.

Happy Thanksgiving, and may you savor your own reasons to be thankful, opening yourself to receiving more and more as each day unfolds.

I’m sorry I didn’t post yesterday. I missed it. I’ve really come to look forward to sitting here on a daily basis. It’s become a lovely daily ritual, and it just doesn’t feel right when I skip a day.

Yesterday was a day of preparation. In just a little over an hour, I pick up my nephew. We have a special relationship, he and I. I was his mom’s sister…still am, as far as I’m concerned, and she was the world to him. We see her in each other.

I look at him and remember how much she adored him, how hard she fought to stay here.

He was seven when she passed away.

You know, when she died, in trying to explain why, a spiritual teacher of hers said to her husband, “She wanted to give you the highest.” And through my grief and tears a resounding thought came through - What a crock!

Death had to drag her out of her body, and there’s no doubt in my mind Death has a few extra scars to show for it.

Few people would fight so tenaciously, cling to life even when one of her own doctors was telling her to quit, because he couldn’t stand to see the pain she was in. A doctor, no doubt, who has seen a lot.

It was hard to witness. But she said she made a promise to her son that she would do whatever she could to stay. And she did. Way beyond what anyone would think possible.

I suppose it’s comforting to think that when something you don’t want happens, it’s for a good reason…or was meant to be. But it isn’t to me, and it especially isn’t when it doesn’t honor the real passion or discount the tremendous effort that person put into attaining something…and failed.

My sister did not want to go. She didn’t want to suffer either. There was no grand purpose in it for her. And she never would have broken her son’s heart for anything. I was with her as she was losing her battle. I held her hand, climbed into the hospital bed at times, to hold her as she was wracked with pain. I know why she put herself through that. It was to stay long enough for the tide to turn. It didn’t.

What she was was true to herself all the way to the end. That is the inspiration in this story.

Not some hyped up explanation as to some cosmic purpose.

I don’t know why she had to die at this time. Even that statement implies there has to be a reason for everything. Maybe that blank needs to be filled in by us. It goes without saying there’s a lot I don’t understand, especially where suffering is concerned. I don’t understand why my sister died to not see her son grow up and my abusive father lived to have another set of kids.

But I still believe in Justice, even though it doesn’t always manifest here. And I still believe in Grace, even though it’s sometimes absent in the lives of those who deserve it the most.

There is no greater way I can honor my sister than to not become disillusioned.

My not understanding doesn’t determine my belief in hope or in something better or more than what we see. But that doesn’t mean I invalidate the experience of the suffering or pretend that what is clearly unjust and sad isn’t, just because it doesn’t fit into what I need to believe.

So no, I can’t tell you in the great scheme of things, why my sister died. But I can tell you what reason she didn’t die for. She didn’t die because she was in cahoots with some cosmic plan to express some noble idea of love as sacrifice, or because suffering and early death is the mark of a truly great soul.

If achieving that stature required the breaking of a child’s heart, never mind her son’s, she would have been content to enter heaven as the lowliest one.

Cancer took her, when she didn’t want to go. She never would have abandoned her son…and she didn’t.

If I have anything to do with it, he will know that.

I light this candle for my sister
and her beautiful son.

(To light your candle click on the icon)