It takes a long time for the morning light this time of year. Daylight Savings Time should be gone.
A good friend is posting on Caring Bridge about the last days of her grandmother's life.
She says the Tibetan Buddhists believe the mind/spirit may not know what is happening so it is important to be peaceful, supportive, nourishing, a guide, and for three days after a person dies, to wish them well on their transition, to let them go, to not hang on, but to let them depart gently and graciously.
I woke from odd dreams this morning. Again, I was with the death of my father, the impact. He died in an accident. We certainly didn't know anything about not hanging on in those days, 1969. In some ways I think my mother's death, 36 years later, may have allowed him a more complete departure.
How do we let another go? My younger son leaves for Europe tomorrow. I feel agitated for no reason that I understand. Why is it so hard to let another go?
I stayed in bed this morning trying to understand the fear. There is us, whatever that is, and there is all those we love. I feel, in this moment, like a flower, wanting to hold all my petals close and bound tightly, and yet, it is autumn, fall, and I have worked so hard to learn to not resist and so here I am this beautiful fall morning in a push-pull which as I type this seems ridiculously funny. Ah, it is best to speak, breathe, and release.
My petals fall with gentle, slow rhythm, to a blessed earth we all share. There is no worry there, and now I think of this word "care." We speak of cares as difficulties, and we speak of caring for another. How odd this double meaning, and yet, sometimes there is pain in the caring, the fear of loss, and yet, there is no loss. Again, I reach to be so clear, there is no loss, only opening without fear.