Grief & Praise

There was a time when I didn't really know how to cry. If I ever did cry, I held it back, choked down the welling up that I was afraid to let out. I had one outlet for my sadness which was my secret, alone-time tear bringer: the memory of my childhood companion, a tabby named Christie, who disappeared in my second year of University, after eleven years of life together. She was my connection to tears. She helped me cry. But as a man, and a boy, I was told, it's not ok to cry. I didn't want people to see me do it. So I held it in.

I have cried more in the last few months than I cried in the twenty-five years before. What a gift! I am so grateful for all my tears. Pain has been such a great teacher. It has helped me to allow my sadness, to celebrate my sadness, in a precious honouring of what I love.

Mourning the loss of mine and Bernice's child, mourning the loss of Andreas and Christina's child, mourning the loss of the idea that I had found someone to grow old in love with, to raise a family with, mourning these losses has been deep journey with spirit into the heart of my love.

How do I love? I haven't really addressed this question directly here yet. Maybe it's time I did.

Since I'm on the topic of grief, I'd like to give some praise. I would like to praise Martin Prechtel, who held me on two long drives during this difficult time. He held me with his words on grief and praise, how in his culture they are the same thing. He speaks with raw, vulnerable honesty about his own pain, and how this pain is a celebration of the gods and all they beauty and magic they have created, which all must die.

I am learning how to grieve, which is praise, which is love. I am learning how to love by feeling the depth of my pain. Dropping all the stories, the blame, the guilt, the shame, and feeling my pain. That's how I love.

Forgiveness is also how I love. Forgiving others for the things they have done that triggered my pain. Forgiving myself for triggering pain in others. Forgiving myself for chosing the painful way, for not loving myself enough to listen to the call of my heart back into my own being.

I call this love because it is surrender to spirit. Love is trusting what is. Allowing what is, really allowing what is, so it can be touched, so it can be felt, so it can be honoured and praised, whether it is sadness or joy.

I watched a movie about two people in love. A love that brought them together despite incredible odds. I cried and cried.  I cried for the loss of the partnership I had. And I cried for the joy of knowing how sacred this love is to me, how I know I will find what I am looking for, because I am feeding the gods with my grief, and they will feel this praise, and they will feed me.

I cry when I see love, I cry when I see pain, I cry when I see passion. I don't know if my fountain of tears will stay with me the way it is now. But I know that now, with the slightest dip into sincerity and passion, beauty and loss, I touch the river of grief and praise that flows through me.