Hello dear readers,
If you are reading this on the day this message has arrived in your inbox, it will be three more sleeps until Mother Nature ushers in a new season. Summer Solstice.
This little one is experiencing everything new. Hatched from an egg into its lifetime. Snuggled in a nest under the warmth of its mother’s feathered body, perhaps next to siblings, learning to eat new delicacies such as worms, bugs, or berries that its father has brought to his family. Growing wings for the moment when it would be time for it to take its first flight. Experiencing the feeling of grass for the first time as it dances between flight and hop, between stretching its wings confidently and feeling more certain of its ability to quickly hop on two legs.
Experiencing a human hand for the first, and perhaps only time, as it discerns if the giant gently picking it up is friend or foe.
Quickly deciding said human is a friend given that said human is not trying to carry it in her jaw like the smaller brown giant, aka bird dog, aka Kutana who was following her authenticity to point and then retrieve for said human (me) a winged being hopping through the grass.
This little one and the experience that brought us together for the brief moments our paths entwined gave me not only the gift of its messages of new beginnings and spreading wings to soar (for I was able to witness this little one fly from my hand and away). I was given the opportunity to affirm how beautiful life is.
Yes. Sure. In being able to hold a new little winged being in the palm of my hand. In watching it fly. And more. Our paths came together as a result of a natural flow of life. A dog following its instinct. A bird living according to its nature. And a human being given choice in how to respond to the strife and struggle.
I chose to offer compassion, kindness, and love.
I do not know the future this little one will have. I also know it wasn’t for me to cage it in any way in an effort to protect or shelter it.
I could only allow the moments in which our hearts connected.
And be in awe of the incredible beauty that such moments are.
Wishing you a beauty-filled transition into Summer.
Namaste’
-Christine
The Creases Now Speak
Edward
Edward was spending more time asleep than awake these days. He could sense the cancer taking up more space in his lungs. The chain reaction to it being harder to breathe was that his body didn’t have energy to sit up.
The chain reaction to lying in bed was the flood of memories, the rising waters of regret. He thought if he welcomed sleep, he could keep the recollections dormant, nestled in the pages of his photo albums, the archives of his articles, the pages of his notebooks whose margins were filled with his journaling.
Sleep did the opposite. It thrust the door open to the stories of his life. It beckoned with earnestness that each character in his life narrative enter, sit with Edward, and insist on engaging in dialogue. Not about the weather. Not about current events and Edward’s perspectives based on his experiences being where a war ended, a political ideology fell, a wall stopped separating a country, all which Edward was most comfortable conversing about. No, each person wanted to talk about history, their history together; like the ghost of Christmas Past rousing Scrooge from sleep to revisit the fragments of good he had done and the choices he made that closed his heart.
Edward knew the cancer was in his lungs, but was certain the struggle to breathe was from the holes in his heart. From the choices he had made. And didn’t make.
The night Sleep gestured for Patricia to enter, Edward found he was able to breathe easier. Patricia always had that effect on him. Even when Grief was stealing Patrica’s breathing and when Edward longed to ease her pain when her sister died, it was Patricia who made Edward feel safe during Death’s thievery of life. Even when he knew his guilt and shame was leading him to choose wrong in rejecting their daughter Laura for her sexual orientation, it was Patricia who accepted his cowardness without condition and in doing so, gave him the strength to not push away from the loss of their oldest daughter to Death stealing her away and to step up and in being a father-figure for their grandson Joshua.
As Patrica entered the doorway of his dream state, he felt relief. Not only in the comfort she was bringing to him. She was not lying frail in a hospital bed unable to speak. She was not squeezing his hand tightly, willing him to find the strength to let her go, assuring him all was well, all would be well. She was not slowly nodding her head in that way she always did when she would gesture to him without words “my heart feels the same” after he told her he loved her with all his heart and that he would see her soon.
That was one of those special things between them. Edward would verbally express to her an endearment from the heart, something Patricia was much better at doing than him, but he loved the feeling of not relying on his writing when it came to telling her what was in his heart. She would respond to his sentiments without words, once telling Edward that the body communicates on behalf of the soul, and that her heart and soul are his. He can still hear her voice, when my head nods in this way and you see my eyes, know that my heart feels the same.
The last movement Edward saw his beloved Patricia make was her slow head nod as he looked in her eyes. She then squeezed his hand, closed her eyes, and they reached the last promise of their vows, until death did, they part.
He didn’t want to wake up from the dream. He was ready to stay with Patricia.
It was during the day on a Wednesday when Edward saw a figure standing at the doorway of his room. For a moment he thought he might still be dreaming and that Sleep had ushered in Lorraine, his sister, that he hadn’t seen in over fifty years. The female in the doorway had her cheekbones, her slender body, her strong-willed stance. The figure took a step inside the room and Edward realized it was Laura.
“Hi dad. It’s me. Laura.”
Edward went to say “hello” and could only burst into tears.
Laura took a couple more steps towards him.
He continued to struggle to speak. Finally, as he tried to control the sobbing that was taking hold of his body, he looked at Laura and said, “I am so sorry” before turning away and hanging his head as the shame and guilt poured down his cheeks through the tears he couldn’t seem to stop.
When he felt Laura’s hand touch his shoulder, he held out his arms. She leaned into his chest as Edward felt the truth of love, once again. It endures all things.