Friday, August 20, 2004
Gracious Exits and Accelerated Grief
Hi:
I'm not trying to be a bummer on purpose, so I hope these chronicles and commentary on life passings do not overly depress you.
My grandma, Emilia Concepcion De Jesus, passed away 2 hours ago. She'd been in the hospital for almost a month.
I want to tell you though, that I don't see in my past a pile of dead bodies to grieve anymore.
Papa - RIP April 2003
Barry Jacobs (boyfriend)- RIP September 2003
Lolo (paternal grandfather) - RIP October 2003
Lola (paternal grandmother) - RIP August 2004
Gracious exits, all of them. Each to his own end, his own thoughts, his own reckoning, his own appreciation of life.
My grief is soothed by this knowledge, and the knowledge that in my last moments with every single one of these people, I gave of myself, my time and my Love to let them know they were loved.
Please don't wait till the end.
Whether or not you believe in predestination
The thing I learned
You can have some effect on the length of someone's life
If you contribute to the quality of their life.
5 stages of loss:
denial _x_
bargaining _x_
depression _ongoing_
anger _x_
acceptance _halfway there_
Yes, thanks to this past year I'm a veteran of the grieving process. Thanks to friends, family, a generous amount of personal reflection and latitude, a strong foundation in faith/hope/love, a liberal dose of detachment and dissociation, and my education in imagery, neurolinguistic programming, and hypnotherapy,
I've learned to accelerate the grieving process
But the process is only accelerated in my head
I'm still a human girl
With strong feelings of love and heart
It is not always possible to feel what we think
or think what we feel
So I'm still crying now
Even though I know all the reasons I shouldn't
Even though I thought there were hardly any tears left
Even though I felt sure I would break all the way down again, if I didn't freeze up or go into catatonic self preservation mode.
Yeah, what more is there to say but
I know, I know, it was time
What more is there to do than be sad
Go through the slivers of insidious guilt,
self-sorrow, the whole activation of every previous loss triggered by this fresh one
I know it but can't fight it
I am carbon based but made of feelings too
What use is there in being wise
When wisdom prompts me to resist what is utterly
natural, and undeniable?
Ah, that is not wisdom.
That is not fluid transference and acceptance
of Energy and Love and Ch'i
I don't mind being called Mistress
but I will never boast of Mastery
to do so would be a taunt to the Universe
I must apply the Law of Requisite Variety
If I am the most flexible, fluid, adaptable
of reaction and behavior
I am the bamboo that endures because I know
Surrender is not defeat
To Yield is not to lose
To adapt is to endure.
I accept the blessing of my Lola's life
The transferred energy and spirit
She was on the brink of death, in physical agony
But she endured it to wait for her children to all be together
And then she began her gracious exit
Improving slightly to give us a feeling of Hope
To gift us in her last days
The proof of her strength and force of will
To show us how Love gave her the strength to endure
such pain and discomfort
Lola was a Survivor and never a victim of life
An orphaned girl, abused by relatives who took her in, abused her and made her sleep with the servants.
A beautiful woman whose humility, tenderheartedness, business acumen and frugality made it possible for her children to have a life of ease.
Though she was raised without much tenderness
She cultivated it as best she could
I can see so clearly, that she might associate
Concern and worry with Love
How would she have known she was loved
When any attention she might have received from her early caregivers might only be worry
So my Lola as a child, her only attention was concern
And for her any attention might be equal to Love
Not knowing anything else.
I told her, I told her
I repeated it over and over
To let her know that we knew
That she loved us and showed it as best she could
That she was infinitely more tender with her grandchildren
I told her she was loved, that she was seen
That we SAW and KNEW and APPRECIATE and ACKNOWLEDGED
her expressions of Love
That she should KNOW she was not invisible
That she should KNOW she would never be forgotten
These are the things we all want from life
These are the things we all want from love
These are the things we want to be sure of before we pass on
Thank you God that I am ever more equipped
With resources and knowledge and expanding compassion
To understand and smile through tears
And help my loved ones get through.
Thanks for listening.
Carmen
I'm not trying to be a bummer on purpose, so I hope these chronicles and commentary on life passings do not overly depress you.
My grandma, Emilia Concepcion De Jesus, passed away 2 hours ago. She'd been in the hospital for almost a month.
I want to tell you though, that I don't see in my past a pile of dead bodies to grieve anymore.
Papa - RIP April 2003
Barry Jacobs (boyfriend)- RIP September 2003
Lolo (paternal grandfather) - RIP October 2003
Lola (paternal grandmother) - RIP August 2004
Gracious exits, all of them. Each to his own end, his own thoughts, his own reckoning, his own appreciation of life.
My grief is soothed by this knowledge, and the knowledge that in my last moments with every single one of these people, I gave of myself, my time and my Love to let them know they were loved.
Please don't wait till the end.
Whether or not you believe in predestination
The thing I learned
You can have some effect on the length of someone's life
If you contribute to the quality of their life.
5 stages of loss:
denial _x_
bargaining _x_
depression _ongoing_
anger _x_
acceptance _halfway there_
Yes, thanks to this past year I'm a veteran of the grieving process. Thanks to friends, family, a generous amount of personal reflection and latitude, a strong foundation in faith/hope/love, a liberal dose of detachment and dissociation, and my education in imagery, neurolinguistic programming, and hypnotherapy,
I've learned to accelerate the grieving process
But the process is only accelerated in my head
I'm still a human girl
With strong feelings of love and heart
It is not always possible to feel what we think
or think what we feel
So I'm still crying now
Even though I know all the reasons I shouldn't
Even though I thought there were hardly any tears left
Even though I felt sure I would break all the way down again, if I didn't freeze up or go into catatonic self preservation mode.
Yeah, what more is there to say but
I know, I know, it was time
What more is there to do than be sad
Go through the slivers of insidious guilt,
self-sorrow, the whole activation of every previous loss triggered by this fresh one
I know it but can't fight it
I am carbon based but made of feelings too
What use is there in being wise
When wisdom prompts me to resist what is utterly
natural, and undeniable?
Ah, that is not wisdom.
That is not fluid transference and acceptance
of Energy and Love and Ch'i
I don't mind being called Mistress
but I will never boast of Mastery
to do so would be a taunt to the Universe
I must apply the Law of Requisite Variety
If I am the most flexible, fluid, adaptable
of reaction and behavior
I am the bamboo that endures because I know
Surrender is not defeat
To Yield is not to lose
To adapt is to endure.
I accept the blessing of my Lola's life
The transferred energy and spirit
She was on the brink of death, in physical agony
But she endured it to wait for her children to all be together
And then she began her gracious exit
Improving slightly to give us a feeling of Hope
To gift us in her last days
The proof of her strength and force of will
To show us how Love gave her the strength to endure
such pain and discomfort
Lola was a Survivor and never a victim of life
An orphaned girl, abused by relatives who took her in, abused her and made her sleep with the servants.
A beautiful woman whose humility, tenderheartedness, business acumen and frugality made it possible for her children to have a life of ease.
Though she was raised without much tenderness
She cultivated it as best she could
I can see so clearly, that she might associate
Concern and worry with Love
How would she have known she was loved
When any attention she might have received from her early caregivers might only be worry
So my Lola as a child, her only attention was concern
And for her any attention might be equal to Love
Not knowing anything else.
I told her, I told her
I repeated it over and over
To let her know that we knew
That she loved us and showed it as best she could
That she was infinitely more tender with her grandchildren
I told her she was loved, that she was seen
That we SAW and KNEW and APPRECIATE and ACKNOWLEDGED
her expressions of Love
That she should KNOW she was not invisible
That she should KNOW she would never be forgotten
These are the things we all want from life
These are the things we all want from love
These are the things we want to be sure of before we pass on
Thank you God that I am ever more equipped
With resources and knowledge and expanding compassion
To understand and smile through tears
And help my loved ones get through.
Thanks for listening.
Carmen
