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It is so surreal to think that you can laugh so hard after such a destructive mallet has hit your roots and the roots of all the people that you love around you, as was the case with the events of that spring of 2005, but I laughed. I laughed through every pore available, all the pain and the suffering clean away. And I held that joke in my mind for the hard weeks to come. As anyone knows, there is no miraculous cure-all for loss, and it will come back to bite you in roller coaster waves when you least expect it, but with time the coaster's moguls will be smaller and the valleys and apexes will be easier to bear. All you need is time, and his joke bought me time.
The genius in his bleep off joke (I can only type the real curse word once; what is the scene from Get Shorty where John Travolta talks about the PG-13 rating and how you can only cuss once or you lose it? Well, I am aiming for that.) was in the surprise of it too. These were days when everyone we came in contact with would try to be respectful and poised and soothing. There seems to be a proportional amount of pain in the attempts at decorum of people supporting those that have just suffered a loss: pre-prepared, labored-over sentiments, well-edited sympathy statements. Maybe the stiff air is filled with the anxiety at screwing up in front of those grieving and that adds to the discomfort in the room. Well, the bleep off joke came in both like a gust of fierce and fresh coastal wind and an M-80. And it woke me up. There can be funny, even after all this!
With the concept of someone else’s lesser bad day, I started to ponder on the idea of just how mad we get when someone is complaining about something that in our given state, on any given storm-cloud-over-head day, might seem measly and miniscule compared to whatever struggle we are confronting. The hardest of hard that we as a family had to go through actually neutralized the concept of comparing sorrows or frustrations. I think that is the thing with seeing the worst: you come to realize that every struggle is a struggle and that you need to give someone else a break. Because some gray little Thursday afternoon, you may end up deeply upset that you got a paper cut while leafing through an 8-month-old copy of the freaking Sun Magazine at your doctor’s office…and then shoot! You'll start doing a futile and imperfect, angst-ridden inventory of how many previous, other human fingers might have touched that particular page’s edge. Ay, Dios. You will be OK. And…it is OK to feel like that one is the single, most important complaint in the world right then.
So today’s entry is in gratitude to those days and those perfect actions, both the kind, well-crafted words and the from-your-gut hilarious comments. I came across something I wrote a year ago, and again I marvel at the healing time brings and at the moments when it is best to be guided by others’ instincts and lead, when one feels at a loss.
~ ~ ~
May 15, 2014
In the days and weeks after my mother passed away, I found solace in walks up in Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley hills. There, I came to love this grouping of redwoods that became my 'church' in nature for reflection, grief, and meditation.
I found the canopy of extended limbs comforting. I named the most prominent of the redwoods "Santa Rosa de Lima" to create a bond between my essence and that of this majestic tree. It was also an homage to my mom. She was very devout, and Santa Rosa was someone she prayed to often.
Those afternoons in Tilden, and my husband's gentle prodding to return there and keep moving through my sorrows, are among the many blessings that saved my life. They, and other miracles, like a wise friend keeping me focused with daily disciplines of art and expression, and like my instinct to go back to UC Berkeley full time to complete my BA in architecture, and work really hard and, thus, feel really proud, reconstructed my life. Not in a perfect linear pattern, but slowly and, I realize, forever. The emotional flatline of the past - a fading memory now. This is how my story plays out. I am strong. And...it is a miracle to be enfolded by love so greatly that your soul is protected, come what may.
I returned today to this place, under my canopy, with gratitude in my heart and hope - there is plenty of hope.
Come What May
Performed by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman from the film Moulin Rouge
vimeo.com/40560731