Yesterday morning, first Michael kissed me before he went out the door, then I grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt, held him to me a little longer. It’s rough with both our fathers approaching the end of their lives, and my Pop currently having one hell of a tough time. Which means I too am having one hell of a tough time.
Michael’s parting words, though I’d wrinkled his shirt, were, “All your life, you’ve been gathering your strength for this.” Then I could say, “You have a good day, too!” while a bit of the weight I’d been carrying attached itself to a nearby cloud.
When Michael and I walked at J.P. on Sunday, entering the park via the back way, since it was too early for the gatekeeper to be up, he kept having to wait for me. “Picking up the rear?” Michael asked? No, I wasn’t picking up the rear, it and the fore were dragging me down. I was walking in lead boots and granite pants, with a marble hat on, no feather in the brim.
Grief may be invisible but it sure does weigh a lot. Gravity is one of the “fundamental interactions of nature in which objects with mass attract each other.” Uh huh. Well, even objects without mass. My grief and fear have been doing more than flirting with each other these past weeks.
Even though Einstein said, “You can’t blame gravity for falling in love,” I do. When Michael and I met the weightless of the mass of my love was drawn to him by a force I can only call gravity or divine intervention which is just another form of gravity, isn’t it?
In 1907 Dr. Duncan MacDougall weighed patients right before and just following their deaths. He claimed the bodies were 21 grams lighter dead than alive. That weight loss, he concluded, was the weight of the soul. Upon death, it invisibly fled. If so, when my father dies and Michael’s father dies and when his mother dies and Michael and I do and your loved ones die and you do, will all those 21 grams turn into clouds or singing birds or trees for the singing birds or ants climbing up the trees or wind sailing through them?
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I'd like to believe that accumulation of soul grams transforms into herons, egrets, pelicans, cormorants, eagles, hummingbirds, bluebirds, songbirds and hawks.......
ReplyDeleteHow much does that pain in the heart weigh, the kind made by the vibe of that very special person whose resonance slips in there, the one you know is a once-in-a-life-time-for-you source of such a vibe ?
ReplyDelete"All your life you have been gathering your strength for this." Wow. All I can think to say is, "Wow." I can imagine the sting of adrenaline you must be feeling an awful lot these days when you think of your father and see yourself gathering that strength Michael was speaking about. Sorry P. I'll be thinking about you out at JP and thinking about your Pop.Not sure this is the same a praying, but I'll see to that as well.
ReplyDeleteLove the shirt grabbing. Could see it in front of me. What a great relationship you have. And how blessed you are to share this hard time with someone you treasure. I'll be thinking of you as well... blessings
ReplyDeleteYes, grief is heavy, slow too, and fully in our bodies. It carries with it rivers of tears, which the earth is thirsty for, and light too, interspersed like the sparkle as the high waves crest and fall back towards the ocean. As your friend Robin says, I'll be thinking of you and yours. To me this is prayer.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet love you share with your father Patrice! I think of you with a full heart of compassion as you walk with grief as your companion. I send prayers for grace to you all.
ReplyDeleteWalking with grief has become familiar to me as I slowly attempt to let go of my mother in the role and form that I have known her.
Her death feels so far away, and yet I am losing her day by day. This idea of the soul weight is intriguing. I almost want to weigh my mom week by week, to see if each memory she loses can be noticed on the scale. And what about skills and independence? Surely those will register at least in ounces, if not the pounds she mourns for. But if the soul that can travel through infinite time and space only weighs 21 grams, what can my love for her weigh? Even less? No. Love must counteract with gravity making what is deepest and densest in us suspend midair.