Surrounded by Sorrow

plus book update #8

There is sorrow all around me. My friends, the close and the very close, are struggling right now. Parents’ minds are slipping into oblivion, loved ones have stage 4 cancer, marriages are dissolving, pets are dropping dead, break ups are breaking up. Lives are upheaved and guts punched and hearts broken. I do what I can, which is very little, save for simply being an open available thing to - cry on, laugh with, talk to. I don’t have healing words because all I have are regular words. But maybe the regular words, and all the spaces between them, can add up to something resembling solace? Comfort? Reprieve?

Maybe that’s all that healing is. Maybe it’s just the spaces between words that, over time, soften the hardness of pain’s carapace. Like water passing over rock. In the absence of good words right now I will offer the words of a poet. These words give us permission to walk through grief while holding beauty. Because what is grief if not the loss of something beautiful?

In Lieu of Flowers by Shawna Lemay

A few years ago I read a friend’s father’s obituary on Facebook. His father had requested in lieu of flowers, please take a friend or loved one out for lunch.

Although I love flowers very much, I won’t see them when I’m gone. So in lieu of flowers:
Buy a book of poetry written by someone still alive, sit outside with a cup of tea, a glass of wine, and read it out loud, by yourself or to someone, or silently.
Spend some time with a single flower. A rose maybe. Smell it, touch the petals.
Really look at it.
Drink a nice bottle of wine with someone you love.
Or, Champagne. And think of what John Maynard Keynes said, “My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne.” Or what Dom Perignon said when he first tasted the stuff: “Come quickly! I am tasting stars!”
Take out a paint set and lay down some colours.
Watch birds. Common sparrows are fine. Pigeons, too. Geese are nice. Robins.
In lieu of flowers, walk in the trees and watch the light fall into it. Eat an apple, a really nice big one. I hope it’s crisp.
Have a long soak in the bathtub with candles, maybe some rose petals.
Sit on the front stoop and watch the clouds. Have a dish of strawberry ice cream in my name.
If it’s winter, have a cup of hot chocolate outside for me. If it’s summer, a big glass of ice water.
If it’s autumn, collect some leaves and press them in a book you love. I’d like that.
Sit and look out a window and write down what you see. Write some other things down.
In lieu of flowers,
I would wish for you to flower.
I would wish for you to blossom, to open, to be beautiful.

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Book update #8:

Writing books is hard. A few paragraphs a day is a win.

I’ve had some winning days this week.