Tag: sorrow

When Light is Put Away

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photo by Tomomi Gibson
photo by Tomomi Gibson
We grow accustomed to the Dark – 
When Light is put away –
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye –
 
A Moment – We uncertain step
For newness of the night –
Then – fit our Vision to the Dark – 
And meet the Road  – erect – 
 
And so of larger – Darknesses –
Those Evenings of the Brain –
When not a Moon disclose a sign –
Or Star – come out – within –
 
The Bravest – grope a little –
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead –
But as they learn to see –
 
Either the Darkness alters –
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight –
And Life steps almost straight.
~Emily Dickinson
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photo by Tomomi Gibson of reflected sunset (facing east)

Going Gentle Into That Good Night

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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
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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

 

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Harvest Test

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Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.
Not only the heavy apple,
the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from their core.
To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.
And however sharply
you are tested –
this sorrow, that great love –
it too will leave on that clean knife.
–Jane Hirshfield from “The October Palace”
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Bare November

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My Sorrow, when she’s here with me…

She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days…
~Robert Frost from “My November Guest”

November,
month of darkening,
now transformed
to a recounting of gratitude
of daily thanksgiving and blessings~~

it is good to dwell on our gifts,
even so,
I invite Sorrow
to sit in silence with me,
her tears blending with mine.

These deepening days
of bare stripped branches
feed my growing need
for the covering grace
of His coming light.

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No Shame to Weep

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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.

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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.

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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.

A Little Tepid Pool

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten
I know what my heart is like
      Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
      Left there by the tide,
      A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay “Ebb”
My mother was my age when my father left her for a younger woman.  For weeks my mother withered, crying until there were no more tears left, drying inward from her edges.
It took ten years, but he came back like an overdue high tide.   She was sure her love had died but the tepid pool refilled, the water cool to the touch, yet overflowing.