Loss and Holy Ground

I will warn you that these two pieces are sad, and if heaven forbid, you have lost a child, you might want to think twice about reading them. Thankfully, I have not had to endure that pain. However, recently a student at a nearby university was abducted and killed. It hit close to home for me and I struggled with a lot of different emotions in the weeks following her disappearance and the subsequent discovery of her. The strongest emotions I felt were for the young lady's parents. It is through my empathy for them that I was able to open my heart to these words. I admit I resisted for a while for obvious reasons, but my heart would not be still until I allowed the words to move. What struck me, which you will see in the writings, is when I heard that her parents went to the site where they found her. I was so moved and saddened by that. My heart still aches for their unimaginable loss. 

The first piece is sort of stream of consciousness as I was opening to empathy and feeling the loss, pain, anger and confusion of any parent moving through this kind of loss and so it alternates between he and she. The second grew out of the first and has a more organized flow. They are offered with much love, sympathy and compassion. 

Would it help to stand where she stood? Would it help to walk the same path that he walked? I have no way of knowing, I have no frame of reference for this. There was no preparation I could have been given to imagine what her last breath might have been like. There is no one who could train me to deal with the haunting of the words, “Was she scared? Or did it hurt?” If only there was some type of surgery that could be done to extract the words, “What if,” from my mind so they wouldn’t repeat over and over until the end of my own days. My own days, which should have come to their natural end long before his. He should’ve been standing beside my grave talking about what a long and full life I had. Now no one will be able to do that, because my life is no longer full. There is an empty place that will always remain vacant. Yes, there will be love and laughter again, life will continue with sunrises and sunsets, or so they say, but it will always be just a little bit different. There will always be a slightly different tune to the harmony of my universe because her laughter won’t accompany my own. I don’t know what to do with all the comfort that I want to offer her that will go ever unoffered. I can’t offer it to myself. How could I live with that, knowing he had none? If I could at least have been there to put my arms around her, that might have been enough. Probably not, but surely it would be better than this nothingness, this inadequacy, this burning anger because I was not there, because I could not save her, because there was and is nothing I can do to reverse it, to ease it, to erase it, to protect him. Nothing. And strangely, that is what I feel. Who knew that if you mixed intense sorrow, anger, fear, loss, heartbreak and despair, you would get nothing? A strange recipe indeed, with a bitter after taste. If I could taste, that is. There doesn’t seem to be much point in flavor or pleasure. They tell me there will be one day. But how can there be when I would feel such guilt at ever experiencing joy or pleasure again? If she cannot, then why should I be able to? I have given up raging about it because I have no one to rage against and even when I did it provided no relief, no resolve, nothing. They tell me it will fade. They tell me he would want me to go on living. But I’m so afraid to. I’m terrified to live if living means letting go. We had so little time to share, just the blink of an eye really. It’s not fair. We deserved more. We were going to have more. We need more time. I can’t breathe. The awful irony is that now each minute seems a year. Each week an eternity. How the days can drag so glacially on now, I have no idea. If only I could go back. How very many things I would do differently. If only. That has become my phrase of choice, my mantra. I think it hundreds of times a day, a minute probably, without consciously doing it. It seems to come unbidden from the stratosphere, drifting down like millions of snowflakes; if only, if only, if only. I stand silently within the blizzard of if onlys. I catch a few of them on my tongue and so give them voice, while millions of others drift quietly to the corners of my mind, creating drifts here and there for me to plow through later. I sometimes wish for a snow blower to come through in my dreams and blast them all away. I simultaneously wonder if I will ever fall asleep again without seeing her face and then fear that I will and what that will mean when I do, if I do. If you can really call it sleep. Mostly I toss and turn until I pass out from exhaustion and then wake up with a start at the slightest sound. I can’t tell anyone any of this. They seem to think work will get me through this, will take my mind off it. What they don’t know is that I don’t want to take my mind off it, off her. They say time heals all wounds. But it’s not true. It won’t heal his. I want to scream in the face of their platitudes, yet I know they are trying to offer comfort however they can. They have no frame of reference either. No one ever taught them how to comfort a friend who is grieving the loss of a child. Let me tell you now, there is no comfort you can possibly offer. You are better off not trying. Instead, let your quiet presence be what you offer. It will be enough to have company through the long, blinding blizzard. 

Holy Ground
Lynda Allen

To the human eye, it seems just a lonely patch of land,

deserted and quiet.
A few animals pass by and the plants grow in peace.
I wonder if any of them were witness to it,
if I would even want to know what they saw if they could tell me.

To my eye, this lonely spot

is sacred, holy ground.
Not because a miracle happened here,
but because it did not.
I hadn’t known that the absence of a miracle
could create the holy.
I wish with all that I am
that I had not learned that particular lesson,
in this particular way.
I hope one day to have the courage
to believe in miracles again.
But today I do not.

Today I walk in silence
listening for echoes
and finding only loss.

How do I stand here where they found her,
and still go on breathing?
Too many unanswerable questions scream out
in my far from silent mind.

So I turn my attention to this place.
Somehow, despite what happened here,
it is able to hold the sacredness,
express the fragility,
witness the loss and the pain.
If only I could learn from it, how to hold all those things,
and still give forth life, beauty, light.

Instead I do the only thing I can do in this moment,
I sit on a rock and weep.
I weep as if weeping is the only thing I have ever known.
I weep every tear of joy or pain that would have been offered
throughout her life, that I will now never get to offer.
I weep for every first and last never to be lived.
I weep for each breath lost, every idea unborn, every laugh not heard,
every heartbeat not felt.

I weep without ceasing,
with only this place as my witness.
My tears fall upon the quiet earth 
in search of a miracle.

If Everything Can Disappear

This was inspired by a writing prompt from a Hospice writers' group that I am volunteering with. The prompt was, if everything can disappear. It came in a very stream of consciousness way and I like the natural rhythm it came with. 

If Everything Can Disappear

by Lynda Allen

If everything can disappear in a moment, in the blink of an eye, without knowing it’s coming, without saying goodbye, without warning, without.

Then what is there to hold on to? If I hold you tightly enough can I keep you here, eternally, not going without goodbye, but together always?

If everything can disappear without explanation, without rhyme or reason, then how do I reason, how do I make sense of it, of anything?

Why cling to life or you or anyone, if it can disappear as if it never existed, as if you never existed, leaving only the wispy threads of memory?

If everything can disappear then clinging, grasping serves no purpose, you can only hold water in your hands for so long before it drips away.

Yet, as I hold the water I can feel its coolness on my palms, I can touch my lips to it and drink, I can see my own reflection on its smooth surface.

If everything can disappear first it must appear, appear in all its glory, in all its beauty, in all its joy and sorrow and love and grief.

So I will drink from the waters of life as they pass through my fingers, celebrate them, feel their joy and grief and love and look for my reflection in you.

If everything can disappear.

September 6, 2013

The Colors of Grief

There has been much sadness for me of late. During the month of July three people I know have passed away. One was not unexpected I guess, though always a miracle is hoped for, and the other two were unexpected. Neither way lessens the sadness.

I have been working with a concept for a while now about grief, which the butterfly taught me; mourn the caterpillar but celebrate the butterfly. So in my heart there is, in part, celebration for the transformation and return to pure Spirit that these souls have undergone. Yet, there is also the part that is grieving. That is the part of my heart that I listened to tonight.

The Colors of Grief
Lynda Allen

What is the color of grief?
What hue the hole in a heart?
What shade emptiness?

Tradition would have it be black,
somber and dark.
Music might have it be blue,
mournful and sad.
But what of light?
What color light would grief be?

The essence you brought was a light,
a beacon.
Perhaps then, this mortal form
is but a way to transform light,
a prism.
Shining from the spirit
through the body,
into life as the limitless colors of you.

Each expression and action had its own shimmering shade.
Each smile a slightly different red.
Each raised eyebrow a kind of blue.
Each laugh a vibrant, iridescent violet.
Each beat of your loving heart an orange I had never before seen.
Each compassionate word a unique and gentle yellow.
Each caring touch wrapped in a bouquet of greens.
Each song you sang brought a burst of indigo.

My grief therefore, cannot be limited to one color,
like you, it is a brilliant rainbow,
painful for the eyes to linger upon
and yet too beautiful to look away.

Reverently, I take up a life’s great brush with both hands,
and paint a portrait of you
using all the colors of grief.


In honor of Sibylle Borger, Lisa Rakoczy and Ralph Davis

September 11th Reflections

Below are some reflections from time spent by Mother River's side today after an Interfaith service. I offer them both in Peace and Love, and in honor of those lost 10 years ago today and for those who yet grieve.


The vulture soars over the treetops,
his shadow skimming them in an endless game of tag
the trees can never win.

That is what I saw as I sat by the river this afternoon. His flight made me take note of the sky. It was searingly blue, in a way that reminded me of another September day. I couldn’t believe the sky dared be so blue that day. It belied the mood, the collective shock and grief. Surely a sky like that could only reflect a day flowing with joy, not tears. Maybe it was the purity of the tears that intensified the blue. A purity sprung from hearts torn wide open. From all walks of life, from all races, all nations, they grieved as one, under that achingly blue sky. Perhaps it did reflect the day after all.

Today the ache is more distant, the blue less offensive to my senses. Many of the hearts torn wide have found a path of healing. And many, for the good of us all, have remained open. If there can be gratitude for the aftermath of that day, mine would be for those hearts that were courageous enough to grieve, heal and remain open. For each open heart is a doorway through which love can freely pass.
Thank you for the gift of your courage to love.

The Passing of a Redbud Tree

I wrote a post last year (April 2009) about the redbud tree in my front yard. Here is part of that post:
There is nothing that tree can do to stop me from loving it. Looking at it simply makes me feel the love in my heart, the love that I am. What an amazing gift that tree gives to me. It provides me with a reminder of the love that I am, an opportunity to feel the love that I am…. Maybe that’s what love is, simply something or someone that reminds you of or reawakens in you the love that you are.

That redbud tree is no longer in my front yard. The disease I wrote about in the post eventually killed that beautiful tree. And so my friend the redbud continued to teach me about love, even in death.

I let her sit in my front yard without a single leaf on her for a whole spring and summer when others could clearly see that she was dead, because I was hoping she would still somehow come back to life. She had been so full of life, so it must be possible I reasoned. Yet, the truth was that her time as a redbud tree had ended and my holding on to her could not bring that beautiful life back to her branches. I had to let her go with grace. My holding her here because of my sadness and reluctance to let her go did not honor the beautiful life that she was.

It was time for her to transform from one form of life to another. I realized at some point that I could let her do it while I resisted or I could let her transform with love. That’s when I remembered the lesson of unconditional love that she taught me one morning as I sat on my porch looking at her. The question became, could I love her unconditionally even in death?

I decided I could. It did not mean that I didn’t still have some reluctance because I did, and it didn’t mean I didn’t have any sadness because I did. However, I didn’t want to tether her here out of fear of loss, but wanted instead to release her with love. It was a slow lesson to learn for me because I had loved that tree since she was a sapling. I did learn, however slowly, that I was not loving her by holding on to her when she was clearly already gone. The loving thing was to acknowledge the end of the life of my beloved redbud and find a way to rejoice in the new life that would somehow come from her death.

In the woods she might have had the opportunity to fall and decay and become a part of the forest floor that would eventually help feed another tree. I knew she wouldn’t have that opportunity in my front yard. I couldn’t really bring myself to cut her down though. Instead someone that loves me had an opportunity to practice unconditional love as well and be part of this process with me. I know she was taken down with a sense of honor and gratitude. So many opportunities she provided to practice her teachings.

She lay in pieces in my yard for a week. My daughters and I mourned her passing. I still feel sadness that I will not see her colors again or feel the coolness of the shade she provides or watch the buds form on her branches in the spring. I miss what she was. Yet, I had to find a way to celebrate her life and what she could become beyond being a redbud tree.

Rather than have her decay at the dump with other yard debris, she had an opportunity to transform in a more dramatic fashion. She became fuel for a bonfire that was part of a night of music and celebration and community. I think she would have liked that. I sat with her as the fire was lit and watched as she transformed before my eyes into flame, smoke, ember and finally ashes. It was sad and joyful at once. I knew through what she had taught me about unconditional love, that I could love her equally no matter what form she took and I knew she could remind me of the love that I am no matter what form she took.

She just never taught me about the sadness I would feel. And yet she did. Through her transformation she showed me that the love I felt for her could radiate through the feelings of loss and remind me of the joy she found in her new form. If I loved her unconditionally how could I not celebrate her transformation with her? I’m quite sure she enjoyed providing light for smiling faces, heat for roasting marshmallows, and warmth for an evening holding the promise of autumn in the air.

And now? Now I carry the memory of her beauty, her lessons and her love with me everyday, as well as the joy of knowing that indeed her life, in whatever form, continues to bear fruit.