Enduring the Darkness
Sometimes sleep is very hard, even when it is dark. So I get up and write, this morning at 5:00 am, an early hour for me.
“The dark night of the soul” is a classic concept in monastic and perhaps other writing and thinking. In relationship to grief and the dark night of the soul, I just read the phrase – “enduring the darkness” – in the Whitman book. That seems to cover it – we are simply trying to outlast, to endure this darkness of sorrow.
This darkness is a complex, yet simple sensation – it seems best described as spiritual or emotional emptiness. I walk around our home and am consciously aware that Daniel has left, that he is missing, and that I feel an emptiness and darkness as a result.
Though we are experiencing some moments of laughter and joy as a family, there is yet this stillness at the end of the day, during the night, and even at midday, where it is too quiet and too empty. A sense of darkness seems to permeate life even on bright sunny days.
Enduring darkness is the only healthy current option other than medication. There seems to be no other escape. Given our deep love for Daniel, perhaps this is natural – we miss him terribly and darkness is the result, a darkness that must be simply endured.
February 25, 2009
“To dust you shall
return”
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall
return.” These words of the Ash
Wednesday liturgy are recited every year on this day by many Christians
participating in the historic rituals of the church as the priest makes the
sign of the cross on our foreheads with a smudge of ashes.
Tonight, Carol recalled how Daniel attended this service
with her two years ago as it fell on her birthday; I missed this moment because
I was out of town on business. That
evening Daniel shared his excitement about this ritual of ashes, commenting
about its richness and meaning as it gave perspective to us in our transient
humanity. Little did we all know just
how transient Daniel’s life would be.
Less than two weeks before he died, Daniel wrote these
amazing words to his friends, including a quote from Archbishop Romero:
“God wants me
to care; He doesn't want me to worry. ‘Beautiful is the moment in which we
understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long
as God wants us to live; we care only do as much as God makes us able to do; we
are only as intelligent as God would have us to be.’ Archbishop Oscar Romero's
words seem so right in my head, but I am struggling to take them to heart.”
I know that Daniel had his moments of struggle in taking
these words to heart. I also know that
Daniel had an amazing gift and perspective on life.
We are but dust and to dust we shall return, though in some
great mystery, God enlivens this dust for a time and we are able to learn, to
grow, to love, and to serve others in this earthly body we inhabit.
Thank you, God, for the gift of Daniel and for enlivening
his dust for a time on earth.
February 14, 2009
Valentine’s
Day: love beckons us
“And love calls to love.
We are summoned from our grief by love, and we will be healed by
love.” Martha Whitmore Hickman
As I read this statement, it strikes me that we are also
summoned to our grief by love –
losing a person we love makes the grief what it is – the seemingly unbearable
and unspeakable experience of emptiness when that person leaves us behind in
this world. I have a deeper experience
and understanding of loving my child as I have explored this pain and emptiness
in my heart. Perhaps my love for Daniel
has even deepened through my grief over losing him.
Yet I sense that this experience of grieving love also has
the ability to call me into deeper love for those still living. The emptiness of one loss makes the presence
of other persons in one’s life more remarkable and meaningful.
Love beckons us to live – how can one live fully without the
love of another calling us to respond?
How can we live fully without sensing that God himself beckons us to
love him and love others in ways that we cannot even imagine?
Today I thank God for His love beckoning me, and for Carol,
Hannah, and Ben loving me, and for my dear beloved son, Daniel, who loved me in
life and even now beckons me to love more fully through his death.
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