Grace. Steady.
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My head and my heart are here
I've been finding it impossible to sit down and write since my mother died a few weeks ago. But it's a sunny day today, and the candles are lit and Chet Baker is crooning, so I've set the scene to write this first journal of the new year.
When I was in my twenties, I was personal assistant to an artist here in NYC. He was very ill and eventually died from cancer. His family and friends were present throughout his final days and I was able to watch the whole process with relative objectivity. I remember most vividly his partner — so steady and calm at his bedside day after day until he was gone. I couldn't fathom her grace. What she was doing seemed impossible and unbearable.
A quarter of a century later I remembered that partner and her steadiness as I sat at my mother's bedside. My mother was in hospice for a few days and pretty quiet and peaceful before she left her body. For two days it was pretty much just the two of us. She spoke very little. She was working hard I could tell. I would rest my hand on her heart and hum. I pictured light all around us. I sang. I cried. I was almost always touching her… reassuring her she wasn't alone. I couldn't think of anything else to do. Now and then she would stir, smile, startle.
A few people came by the room now and then. At one sort of surreal moment, a sweet young person with a guitar tapped on the door and asked if we wanted to hear some music. They stood by the bed and sang to us in the sweetest voice you can imagine (“Blowin' in the Wind” — my request — and also they never returned and I wondered later if I had hallucinated that moment). More family trickled in over the next days, and when she took her last breath she was surrounded by those who knew her best and loved her most.
I miss her every day. She was a great Mom. She was a great conversationalist! She was a ferocious intellectual, and so so curious. I miss her questions and her empathetic responses. I miss laughing with her til we cried. I miss her book recommendations. I miss drinking tea with her. I miss telling her how the kids are doing. And on and on and on and on…
Here’s What I’m Doing…
I'm going to try to be more intentional this year… to slow down and witness and listen. So it's back and back again to meditation… tough for me in a grief cycle wow… so tough. Slow qigong forms tend to feel more soothing these days.
I'm listening to Anderson Coopers' grief podcast, “All There Is”. It is a bit of a lifeline at the moment.
I'm listening to music as much and as often as possible.
I'm going to museums. ("Just let the art take care of you, Piper," I tell myself as I head into the Whitney or the Frick or wherever… and it does.)
Finally, I'm putting my body in sacred places whenever time allows — churches and temples and theaters — where folks seem able and willing to embrace death and all matters of mystery. It helps.
I wish you all much Grace and steadiness in this new year.