I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Maureen Callahan Smith’s reflection and poem on grief and grace.
Many of us are called to be caretakers of loved ones and know well the strength and internal resources it can involve. I was a caretaker for my younger sister, my “ Irish twin” when she was diagnosed with Stage IV Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma at 44, underwent a grueling bone-marrow transplant and died at 46. The main pillars of my own support and survival during this time and its aftermath were a reconnection with my faith, my contemplation practice, writing, walking in the woods near our home, and the miracle of a mid-life new love. During a time of intensity that seemed beyond words, I would often find a poem or piece of writing “ dropping in” fully formed, nearly as if I was hearing it on the radio. I am grateful at this point in my soul’s career here on the earth plane to have found the Abbey of the Arts and to have an opportunity to share one of these poems, which felt to me like Psalms.
Psalm II
I bow my head to the moss covered earth,
and kneel to smell Your breath,
and rise to watch two ducks as they take flight
calling Your name to the sky.
Now I join the community of all
who have lost those ones
they held most dear.
It is a timeless community
of survivors and glorifiers
and those who blame God.
Where shall I sit?
The icy air makes my tears for me now.
I walk when I cannot cry.
I walk to remember
and to forget
and to wonder:
Do you talk back to the ducks?
Do you hear our worried wonderings?
And are you, as promised,
setting a table to greet her,
out beyond the wind?
A clinical social worker of forty years and lifetime journal keeper, one of Maureen Callahan Smith’s happy places has always been at a desk with a pile of books in front of her. Years and hundreds of writing desks later, a memoir about grief & gratitude was born. (Grace Street: A Sister’s Memoir of Grief & Gratitude, Gray Dove Press) MaureenCallahanSmith.com
