What Endures
October 19, 2008 · by Christine
‘I learned that her name was Proverb.’
And the secret names
of all we meet who lead us deeper
into our labyrinth
of valleys and mountains, twisting valleys
and steeper mountains–
their hidden names are always,
like Proverb, promises:
Rune, Omen, Fable, Parable,
those we meet for only
one crucial moment, gaze to gaze,
or for years know and don’t recognize
but of whom a later word
sings back to us
as if from high among leaves,
still near but beyond sight
drawing us from tree to tree
towards the time and the unknown place
where we shall know
what it is to arrive.
-Denise Levertov
Today is the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death. My time away on retreat the last few days was a time of ritual and remembering. I will post more about the retreat itself in the next couple of days. Thank you for all of your beautiful blessings in comments and emails.
Last night after I returned home we went to a friend’s house for Sukkot. It is a 7-day festival that comes after the Jewish high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and during it, celebrants build sukkahs or tents and live in them as a remembrance of the Israelites time of wandering. As my rabbi friend reflected, it is a time to remember that life is fragile and we are vulnerable, that everything is temporary.
Coming on the eve of such an anniversary for me, the meaning was amplified in my heart. The invitation to be present to life’s brief and precious nature feels especially profound. The memories of being present to my mother in those final days of her life and in the transition to her death continue to be the most visceral and profound memories I have.
With my father’s death twelve years ago and the loss of my beloved companion Duke just over two years ago, I am familiar with the landscape of loss. I know life’s fragility in an intimate way. I know the terrible ache of grief when I have wondered how I can even manage to keep my lungs filled with air.
None of us is spared this experience. We may have to face it in a variety of ways — the loss of a job, a home, a dream, a beloved one or many. Each can tear our hearts wide open if we let it. And each of us can shut out the pain in the hopes that it will make life easier to bear. I have chosen to welcome in the sadness again and again.
Yet life is filled with paradox. In a world filled with losses and ending, there is also unspeakable beauty. For the many hours I have spent with my heart rended, I have spent as many hours in awe of a landscape, of a small kindness, of love. To the degree I welcome in grief is also the degree to which I am capable of welcoming in joy. Life is unbelievably fragile and fleeting and it is made of a substance solid like steel or stone, enduring in ways we had not imagined.
My mother was a radiant woman. She discovered her power in the last few years of her life and it continues to fill me with sorrow that I did not have more time to witness this gift, to bask in her ability to speak truth without apology. She is one of those persons whom Denise Levertov writes about, except that I was blessed to know it at the time and to be grateful each day for what she would teach me. If I become truly her daughter, then I will have lived well.
This morning I awoke to discover fog laying close to the earth and so on this anniversary, I headed to the cemetery. It is not where my mother is buried, that is three thousand miles away, but that does not matter. I love fog because it speaks to me of the mystery of God, of how we have only a limited vision of that expansive love and goodness. I adore graveyards because in being surrounded by those stones lovingly erected by families in grief, I feel connected to a community that has loved deeply and I am linked to that other world in tangible ways. I experience the “thin place” of which the Celts speak and who say this time of year we are approaching is when the veil becomes especially thin between heaven and earth.
I hear my mother “sing back to (me) / as if from high among leaves, / still near but beyond sight.” She is as close as my own breath, she beats in my blood. I see my ancestors dancing with abandon in circles around me, calling me to remember what does endure across the tapestry of time — stories of exile and stories of arriving home again.
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(top photo is of my mother at 2 years old, other photos taken at the Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle this morning)
Posted in Family Systems, Grief, Photos | 16 Comments »
October 19th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Christine, What beauty you offer in living so deeply and honestly, and your photos add a richness to your words. May a Spirit of peace and serenity abide with you in these tender days.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
All the ache and grief of life is here, and all the beauty too, and I have come away from this beautiful post with renewed hope, somehow.
I think it started springing up when I read how you went to the cemetery today to honour your mother, even though she is in another place thousands of miles away. And there was something in there that spoke to me about the connectedness of all things, somehow, that comforted me. Isn’t that strange?
What a beeyootiful pic of your mother with her dawg
Gorgeous
October 19th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Beautiful post – always inspirational and peace-giving. Thank you for the intimacy of sharing your grief experience with your readers. To read of your journey encourages me to examine my own experiences of grief and growth.
xoxo
October 20th, 2008 at 12:47 am
What a beautiful sharing of sorrow, joy and depth. Accompanied by such wonderful photographs. Thank you.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:39 am
As always, such beautiful words and images. I remember walking with my mother toward her death in 1993, the way it opened things that needed healing, debriding the wounds of our disappointing past, allowing for a graceful and grace-filled parting.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:50 am
What beautiful comments here! Thank you for your grace-filled words.
Sue, I don’t think that’s strange at all, that is part of what drew me to dwell in that space.
Blessings to each of you this day.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Christine,
Again, I must comment on the photos. The first two of the graves are exceptional. The little leaf next to the grave of mother reminds me of a tear. And, the bright blue flowers with the darker tones of the grave and fall leaves brings that sense of the mixture of joy and sorrow. Did you bring flowers yourself to place on the graves? I love that gift that people bring when they “tend” the graves of those they do not know.
Two comments you made about your mother also stood out: “She is as close as my own breath, she beats in my blood. ” and “If I become truly her daughter, then I will have lived well.” I thought all people had such a strong love for their mothers, but not so. Many have, unfortunately, had quite a mixed relationship of love and frustration. Consider yourself among the truly blessed as a close relationship with one’s mother can give a woman a very strong core at one’s center to love from.
With gratitude for your wonderful writing today,
Pam
October 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Pam, thanks for these beautiful words. I am indeed blessed to have had that kind of relationship with my mother. I didn’t with my father and that is something I grieve as well, that experience of never having been fathered well. So I especially treasure my mother’s love and example.
I actually discovered the flowers laying on those graves and loved the contrast of colors. I wish I had thought to bring my own, but it was quite early on a Sunday morning when I ventured there. I did become aware of graves that looked tended and those that didn’t and wondered what might happen if I began visiting certain people I did not know.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Just profound gratitude for your words/images. Namaste.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:07 am
i am not sure what to say that has not already been said. your sharing (both in images and words) has touched me deeply once again! please know this was exactly what i needed to hear today. it inspired a post of my own
xoxooxxooxo
October 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
as i sit here facing you, a dense fog has moved over the landscape here. almost everything has been swallowed up in white. i’ve always loved how fog invites a recalibration of sight … to see out of necessity what has ever always been right in front of me … just enough light for the next step and the one after and the one after that.
you have offered so much of yourself and so lovingly this morning and i find that i am deep inside this temporary booth of rememberance with you and with my Lord. sukkot will always lead me to the tabernacle … of this body, my heart, and to the overarching story that i have been privileged to enter and to make my pilgrimage through. so thankful to share the temporary with you.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:19 am
postscript … i’m suddenly aware that this fog that envelops me is in itself a tabernacle. how i want to feast here inside the temporary.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Christine,
I have come back several times and find it hard to express myself. Like you, i had a deep relationship with my mother…and was fathered very poorly. Sadly, my mother died at 48, long before she was able to find herself. In some way, though, I know it was all there.
I am so grateful that you were able to see your mother come into her own.
Thank you, once again, for sharing these powerful and tender feelings. Isn’t it interesting how these painful experiences are so universal? I think we can only discover that when we finally have the courage to share.
I am deeply touched.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
What you have written here reminds me of the words of Gibran: The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Embracing the loss, grief, sorrow and pain is no small thing…it can be a fearful thing….and it promises to change you….hopefully (eventually) for the better.
Thank you for your sharing and openness…for this view into these personal spaces within your heart. I believe that what you have written will be a genuine help to someone….it will help them to not become lost in the fear & sense of isolation.
God bless you and keep you, Christine.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
More beauty, I am moved at the depth of response.
Thanks Rachel, and lucy for your own inspired post.
Laure, your words are so poetic, they always open something in me, thank you for that.
Suz, I do think sharing these stories makes them whole.
Kristin, what a wonderful quote from Gibran, I will hold onto that. Thanks for your very kind words.
Blessings upon blessings to each of you
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 am
Your words and your images took my breath away. Than you so much for sharing this.