While visiting my almost 90 years old grandparents, I discovered a lot of sadness about witnessing people I love irrevocably approaching death. Their bodies slowly giving up abilities and functions, their physical pain, their anger, sadness and fear about this process that seems so counterintuitive when I observe with amazement the Life within them still burning steadily and joyfully. Life never gets tired. The bodies and the souls get tired. Life is.
Life in its vitality and frivolity peeking through half closed eyes, vibrating in trembling hands, giving colours to wrinkled skin. Faces lighten up by a memory that lit the space with Love, rippling lighthearted laughter washing over the orange room with Joy, sudden gestures of arms being thrown into the air like confetti in the act of Generosity. The way my grandpa’s energy expands when he gets angry, his voice growing in volume, a hefty energy that fills in the space with presence.
We talked a lot about feeling’s work this time. My grandma was catching all distinctions between conscious and unconscious emotions or benefits of expressing and recognising feelings easily, she was nodding, bringing in examples and very curious. I noticed sometimes her mental constructs would gang up on her and she would shrink and become rigid but then soon after her Being would come through again, she would expand and we would have an intimate loving conversation. She would stroke my head. I would massage my grandpa's cold hands.
Just after leaving my grandparents place, I met a close friend for a coffee in the city centre I hadn't seen for 6 months. Without much introduction I started telling her about my sadness. Words and tears flew in a steady stream. I felt joy about her holding me, about how comfortable I was in a random busy cafe to let my sadness unravel with care and grace. This grief is still within me and its waves wash over me with certainty, like the strokes of the ocean over my body. So much life in dying. So much death in living.
Yesterday evening I sat with a friend in another favourite cafe of mine from years before, that I was happy to find that still exists. A tiny corridor cafe where people come to read and listen to vinyls. I was writing and my friend was reading and holding my hand. So simple. I felt so much Love and Tenderness.
Sending love to you tonight, with my stepdaughter sleeping at my side, my shadow chilling on the floor, and my heart open.
