The Cathedral Hall of Grief
We enter the presence of grief as though we are walking through the entrance to a church.
I heard that my beloved cousin died. I looked through my meditation books for passages that might offer some wisdom. After a while, I realized that reading about an experience was my way of avoiding it. I was trying to substitute someone else's thoughts for mine.
I lit a candle and just sat. My grief felt as vast as a cathedral hall - echoing, empty, sacred. My NO! turned into wordless prayer.
Grief is the profoundest of gifts. To grieve means that we have loved, that we still love, and we are honoring someone who deserves our love and sorrow. Our grief recognizes our suffering.
We enter the presence of grief as though we are walking through the entrance to a church, blessing ourselves with holy water, entering the spacious realm of silence, and sitting down in an empty pew. Perhaps we kneel. We grant ourselves our own wisdom without distraction or escape attempts.
Perhaps the origins of the spiritual quest arise out of grief. We have questions:
Why did this happen?
Where did they go?
What will my life be like without them?
Joy doesn't make us yearn for answers in the way deep sorrow does.
We are shaped-shifted by the metamorphosis of grief. Our former selves, the ones who don't know about such loss, have turned into ghosts along with the ones we mourn.
While I was cleaning out the attic, I came across the briefcase that held my father's camera. He had covered the interior of the case with a layer of foam for protection. Each component, every bit of documentation - including the original receipt from 1982 - was carefully packed. I felt his presence next to me as I pulled out the camera that he loved. I remembered the care he took with his possessions. The camera was part of the life my father made after my mother died - to remarry, to try new ventures, to keep living. Whenever he took pictures, he put the camera away as though leaving it for the next person to use.
We are surrounded by ghosts that only we know, because our memories of a person are so particular to us. They've moved out of the frame of time, but they still visit us - our memories, our ghosts. They're the witnesses to all of our changes. They're the ones who know us best.
They are here and not here. Wisps of cloud in the shadows on the edge of the cathedral hall.
Beautiful, and very helpful.