dangerous compassions

I call you / from the comet's cradle

Sunday, January 06, 2019

death


I promised to bring a song and a flower to our prayer meeting.  Then it got dark. 

I was by our front door with a pair of scissors and my cellphone flashlight trying to pick a marigold, leaning over to reach where the marigolds are growing from seeds Ming planted a couple years ago. 

I think she liked it.  I sang pretty good too, my favorite Durga song.

This morning I went through a shoebox of mail from someone who was my best friend for a few years, best friend #2.  She's an artist so the mail is amazing.  I saw some beautiful things, and it felt bittersweet, but I'm more happy it happened than sad it's over.

Also strangely there was a thin wool shawl in there my friend V brought me from Nepal.  It's tan with brown embroidery and very pretty.  But I'm not good at shawls.  What should I do with it?

I need to do my homework for theology, but I'm suffering, having been over-social yesterday.  Maybe I'll go unprepared.

"If I hide under the bed, can they find me?" I asked Ming.  He said no.  But the dust bunnies would find me.

A victory: someone I helped screen is coming to visit our Catholic Worker, auditioning for community.  It would be nice if he found a home here.  He's coming in two days.

I woke up yelling "No! no! no!" from a nightmare this morning, as Dad's shoes were on a dish drainer and someone angry with me was chucking framed photos across the room into a box, breaking glass on the kitchen floor.  Ming comforted me.

"Laura-Marie," he said.  "Laura-Marie," as I whimpered.

Death is a problem.  It's full of pain, or someone needed you not to go and you went.  It's too soon, or too lonely if no one cared that you went.  It's trauma--it's scary.  "Things don't end well for anyone," I told Ming.

I was thinking: At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.

Well, a monk just stopped by for a key to the back house.  He thanked us for a card we sent when his dad died.  He's off to church wearing his brown robe and rope belt.  His white beard is looking good.

1 Comments:

  • At January 06, 2019 11:31 AM, Blogger Annette said…

    “...I’m more mapping it happened than sad it’s over.” This is a healthy way to look at death. When I’m dead, I would like you to be more happy to have had me in your life than sad my life is over.

     

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