Tag: grief

Going Gentle Into That Good Night

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dylanED
Drawing of Dylan Thomas by Emily Vander Haak Dieleman
Dylan Thomas and his kids in 2002, by Karen Mullen
Dylan Thomas and his kids in 2003, by Karen Mullen
DylanApril2014
Dylan, a week ago
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~Dylan Thomas
This pup came to us almost 13 years ago through a family friend, as we were mourning the death of Dan’s father, Tom, after a series of strokes.  Tom had rallied with amazing emotional strength against his growing weakness, until the final event took him quickly from us over a few short hours.  At home on the farm, we were watching a similar decline in our 16 year old Belgian Tervuren “Tango” who was deaf, blind and increasingly forgetful.  Our farm desperately needed the invigoration of a young vital life.
So Dylan Thomas, Welsh Cardigan Corgi puppy, moved in.  He was a most unusual color, with spotted eyes that laughed and mused at life.   He loved to cuddle and spent plenty of time in our kids’ laps.  When Tango’s time came after a sudden paralyzing stroke, as I held a flashlight for a young vet as she searched for a vein to administer the final medication outside on a freezing November night, I was very grateful we had Dylan’s calm face, strong back and short legs to carry us through another death.
He was asked to carry us again and again.  When he and a new dog to our farm went to the vet on the same day to be neutered, Dylan came home alone when his good buddy died from a devastating anesthetic reaction.  He watched another dog arrive as a pup and die a decade later of a rare muscle cancer.  Alone, Dylan would howl pitifully in the night.   He got grayer, barked more the deafer he grew,  and moved through farm chores with somber deliberateness.

When young Sam arrived two years ago, Dylan was obviously ambivalent about training up another pup.  He would put up with Sam’s lavishing kisses all over his face, but would never relinquish a bone or a preferred bed.  Sam was company but too much a bundle of energy to cuddle with, just a young whippersnapper who didn’t understand the serious business of life as a farm dog.

Dylan watched through his spotted eyes as our children grew up, got busier and moved away.  He watched them return for visits, accompanied them for walks to the top of the hill, but knew they would soon depart again to places far away.  Dylan’s world was a pen that felt like all the home he needed.  His farm, his family and his food were all he wanted.
He decided two weeks ago not to get up when I went to feed him in the morning.  He lay flat on the grass, weak, looking at me through those eyes as I petted and stroked his deaf ears, unable to hear any words of reassurance I spoke.   Our daughter was taking her semester finals at college in Chicago and I reluctantly let her know that I thought Dylan was not long for this world.  She asked if there was any way he would last until she arrived home on May 14 for a brief visit and I said it simply wasn’t possible.    That evening, anticipating that I was about to call the vet to come to the farm, Dylan struggled to his feet, clearly not ready to check out.  He was willing to take some special treats from my hand and decided that it was worth sticking around if it meant fresh steak meat and farm eggs to eat.
Remarkably, he grew strong enough to come to the barn again for chores, raid the cat food dish and even climb the hill one last time two nights ago.  He was clearly hanging on, raging against the dying of the light, until May 14, the morning of Lea’s arrival back home, when he wouldn’t accept the special treats from me any more.  When she arrived late that evening and came to say hello to him, it was clearly goodbye.  His eyes were fading, his strength waning.  But he had hung on in an old age that burned and raved.  He had made sure one of his kids was home so he could now sleep sound.
Yesterday, he didn’t get up in the morning, and laid quietly in his little house, watching the farm around him, the light fading from his eyes.   He napped in the warm spring afternoon and didn’t wake back up.  The light had flown into the skies above.
Many of us tend to measure our lives in dogs.   Dylan was the one who took us from a full house of young growing children to a house that longs for those arms to return home every once in awhile.   Dylan clearly waited for the arms he loved to come home and then he was ready to let go, going gently, oh so gently, into that very good night.
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Sam watching the clouds from the hill after Dylan's death
Sam watching the clouds from the hill after Dylan’s death
The light last night
The light last night

 

dylansnight8

Listening to Lent – Through the Gloom

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sunset32314Death shall not destroy my comfort,
Christ shall guide me thro’ the gloom;
Down he’ll send some heav’nly convoy,
To escort my spirit home.

(Refrain):
Oh, hallelujah! How I Love my Savior,
Oh, hallelujah! That I Do.
Oh, Hallelujah! How I love my Savior!
Mourners, you may love him too.

Jordan’s stream shall not o’erflow me,
While my Savior’s by my side;
Canaan, Canaan lies before me!
Soon I’ll cross the swelling tide.
(Refrain)

See the happy spirits waiting,
On the banks beyond the stream!
Sweet responses still repeating,
“Jesus! Jesus!” is their theme.
(Refrain)
~American Folk Hymn

There are families in despair
just down the road apiece from us:
the uncertain earth gave way and slid far,
overcoming houses and the people within.
The missing outnumber the known dead.
The searchers struggle on quicksand;
The mourners drown
in enveloping inevitability.
There is no where to turn,
no comfort to find
but that we belong,
body and soul,
to our Savior
who came to fetch us
from the muddy flow of our lives.

Freefall

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.
~Denise Levertov

This week three local families find themselves in freefall,
losing a child to mangled metal,
one moment so much alive,
the next irretrievably gone.

It must feel like solid ground has dropped away
like those dreams of falling
when wakened by startled thud
upon a pillow.

May God’s embrace
cushion their hard landing,
His unearned grace sufficient
to keep them afloat in a vast ocean of tears.

No Shame to Weep

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webdrizzle4

Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.”
~ Brian Jacques 

The end-of-summer farm is silently sobbing in its loss; tears of fall, from fog, mist and drizzle, cling to everything everywhere. I arrive back in the house from barn chores soaked through from walking through the weeping.  ‘Tis no shame to be drenched in such sorrow.

The memory of summer is pressed deep in our grieving its passing, our wounds healed by Light that illumines our tears.
We are never left comfortless and weep in the knowing.

dandydrizzle4

webdrizzle

With a Final Heartbeat

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hibiscus3Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head for love is passing by

Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live

Now your burden’s lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain

So sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live

And like a new born baby
Don’t be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk sometimes we fall

So fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain

Then cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live

Ohh, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can’t contain your joy inside

Then dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on glory’s side

And fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live

Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live
~Chris Rice “Untitled Hymn”  (click link to hear this hymn which was sung at Linda’s funeral)

Our little church family lost one of its own last weekend.  Linda wasn’t in her usual seat last Sunday morning, which was notable.  When a family member later couldn’t reach her on the phone,  it was discovered she had slept all the way to heaven sometime in the night.

Hers had been a final heartbeat that only God knew would happen, and when.

We miss our sister in Christ and she was missed again this morning as we sang and prayed and heard God’s Word to us; we miss her gentle smile and her ready willingness to help whenever needed.  We miss her dedication to a Savior who, by His grace,  reshaped her life from self to selfless service and sacrifice.   We miss her love and caring for the rest of us who worshiped alongside her.

Yet we are comforted by what she has left behind: the flower gardens around our church that Linda tended faithfully for years, the crocus and tulip bulbs we know will come up next spring as they will continue to do, to remind us of renewal and resurrection.  Linda got down on her knees to work the soil to create beauty, falling on her knees in gratitude for forgiveness she had known and been shown.  She cried, she sang, she danced, and now, now she has flown to Jesus long before we were ready for her to leave.

We raise our tearful faces to see her love passing by.

Go in peace, Linda.  You have found joy on glory’s side.

queenannes

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A Glowing Soul

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with prayers for the family of a ten year old Whidbey Island girl who died this week while out in the field with her beloved horses –of natural causes and no signs of trauma

photo by Brandon Dieleman
photo by Brandon Dieleman

…riding gave her more than a body. It released a gay and hardy soul. She was the happiest thing in the world. And she was happy because she was enlarging her horizon. 
…A rift in the clouds in a gray day threw a shaft of sunlight upon her coffin as her nervous, energetic little body sank to its last sleep. But the soul of her, the glowing, gorgeous, fervent soul of her, surely was flaming in eager joy upon some other dawn.
~William Allen White from his famous eulogy for his daughter “Mary White” in 1921 written four days after she died in a riding accident

This is a week of very public sorrow for so many, though, not unlike any week, there are those who grieve in their own private agony of loss.

Any child dying is too young too soon.  It defies our limited ability to understand or explain.

May we, as did William White over 90 years ago, search for the eloquence in telling the story of that one young life — how her soul lit the world for a brief shining moment and now continues to flame beyond our reach.

Let it Go

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

I let her garden go.
let it go, let it go
How can I watch the hummingbird
Hover to sip
With its beak’s tip
The purple bee balm — whirring as we heard
It years ago?

The weeds rise rank and thick
let it go, let it go
Where annuals grew and burdock grows,
Where standing she
At once could see
The peony, the lily, and the rose
Rise over brick

She’d laid in patterns. Moss
let it go, let it go
Turns the bricks green, softening them
By the gray rocks
Where hollyhocks
That lofted while she lived, stem by tall stem,
Blossom with loss.
~ Donald Hall from “Her Garden” about Jane Kenyon

Some gray mornings
heavy with clouds
and tear-streaked windows
I pause melancholy
at the passage of time.

Whether to grieve over
another hour passed
another breath exhaled
another broken heart beat

Or to climb my way
out of deepless dolor
and start the work of
planting the next garden

It takes sweat
and dirty hands
and yes,
tears from heaven
to make it flourish
but even so
just maybe
my memories
so carefully planted
might blossom fully
in the soil of loss.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

 

Leafy Ghosts

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photo by Josh Scholten

The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves…

And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness.
~John Updike

The maple’s leaves have let go
in the winds and rain
in a bid for freedom,
swirling to new adventure
and ending in
soft landing
one atop another.

There they lay
in leafy graveyard
among others
seeking release
from branching bondage,
each shaped differently
in designed diversity.

The collected pile slowly
assimilates in color and wilt.
Once distinctive foliage,
so green and grand,
from oak, chestnut,
walnut,  birch
and maple settle in
together at last.

In death
mirroring each other
just as birthing leaf buds
appeared indistinguishable
a mere eight months ago.

My eye now only sees
a mosaic carpet of jumbled
ghostly remnants,
dressing the ground
as they once adorned branches.
No longer do they
lift and dance in the breeze,
no more chemical exchange
of sunlight for fuel.

Distressed and done,
fallen and sodden,
each one lies
alone
together,
a chlorophyll coda
of lost loveliness.

Mingled with Grief

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“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien

What happened last night in Aurora, Colorado is not fair.  There could not have been a darker place than a theater where a masked gunman gassed, then shot and killed escaping movie goers at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie.  I’m not a fan of the genre of troubled superheroes but my children and their friends and many of my patients are.  They like to attend first movie showings at midnight in big batches, celebrating an anticipated release together.  The young people who were killed and injured are just like them.  It is so unfair, just like so many violent tragedies instigated by a desperate person wanting to prove a point through random killings, then make the news in a “suicide by police” gesture.

The media has just released information that the young shooter is a neuroscience graduate student withdrawing from his program–someone whose motives are still unknown but whose struggles were undoubtedly apparent to his family and mentors.  He must be a bright and talented individual to have made it into a PhD program so this somehow compounds the tragedy.   One of the stark realities of our time is that before a shooter is identified by the media, there are dozens, maybe hundreds,  of people who wonder if and fear their family member (or patient) could be the one.   There are so many struggling with dark impulses and those around them often have a clue and have tried to help.   I’ve seen students in my practice with such thoughts and it is a heavy burden for them and for me to sort out how best to reduce the risk of them acting out their impulses.  There have been times when hospitalization isn’t possible, when meds aren’t effective or not taken, when counselors are ignored, when families are non-existent support.   That is when I can only pray on my own for light in my patient’s darkness, that he will not become the next headline, the next suicide, the next mass shooting.

There must be unfathomable grief today on the part of the families of the killed and injured, and on the part of the family of the shooter, and the recent University administrators and others who may have tried to help him.   There is no response possible except to love these hurting people as deeply as possible, surrounding them with hope and prayer.   They will never be the same.  The shooter has made certain of that.

The shooter didn’t extinguish the light nor has he extinguished himself, no matter how hard he hoped to.  We need to make sure he failed in his goal.  The media needs to draw a curtain around this tragedy and limit exposure.   To dwell on it only encourages this and the next mass murderer in their quest for infamy.

Our grief mingled with love grows the light brighter than ever;  prayers for mercy can effectively flood and extinguish the darkest of places.

Perhaps the last thing James Holmes might expect is that there are people who will pray for him as well.

It is only fair.

What Will Be Required

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photo by Josh Scholten

“He will wipe the tears from all faces.” It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required.
Marilynne Robinson

Someone precious to our family is dying, after living a long and faithful life of loving devotion and service to God and the people she cared for and about.  There are tears being shed by those of us watching her grow weaker and drift farther from the shore of the living, hour by hour.  Her hands are still warm as we hold her firmly, asking her to open her eyes, acknowledge we are near, not depart from us quite yet.

But her goodbye will come soon and more tears will be shed.  We will have lost our anchor of over eight decades and will be adrift in the flood of our weeping.

He knows this is what is required of the living, so is prepared, shoulder and sleeve and hanky at the ready, to stem our flow and wipe away our every tear.  Death shall be no more, nor shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain.

As we watch her gathered into His arms and carried away, we know it is lovely and it is good.

And for that we weep tears of joy.