On Loosing a Loved One

Dreams tell the truth, guiding on how to navigate waking life

Dreams tell the story

Listen to the dreams and take the advice

What is it that needs to be heard and seen in consciousness?

What is it that lies underneath the impatience and overwhelm, the anxieties and flashes of emotion?

Dreams tell the truth

Listen

The portal of grief opening wide, I am ripped apart as it splays my ribs and pelvis

My heart exposed, memory dripping like blood

I cannot hold this liquid, it flows through my fingers as I struggle to stem the loss.

I turn my head in curiosity after I have moved through this panic

I see that I can guide the liquid in my cupped palms

Allowing it to flow less chaotically.

Instead of chaos, I guide the blood, allowing it to fertilize the soil 

Of continued honorings of the one who I have lost in physicality

The fertile soil allowing me to anchor in the roots 

Of what the one I have lost has taught me

These lessons living on

A legacy of a life well lived

A life of unconditional love and joy, of affection and care, of discipline.

I notice that it is the firsts that hurt the worst

The first time I experience something without you beside me 

The first time I turn to see how you feel and there is only empty space

Only an echo of what you were within my memory.

My mind plays tricks on me-

I hear you and see you still, where you have been for so long

Your spirit imprinted in this space

Only an echo of what you were within my memory.

Dreams tell the truth

That you are gone

Helping my conscious mind to process what has happened.

Listen to the dreams.

But I do not wish to let you go

Because I do not wish to feel the loneliness that has replaced your aliveness

It is what hides beneath the impatience and overwhelm, the anxieties and flashes of emotion.

But I will not dishonor your life by escaping the grief that comes with loving you so immensely

And so I allow my heart to bleed

Cupping the flow lovingly in my palms

Honoring you by continuing the disciplines you helped me to establish, the love you showed me was possible, and the deep joy and gratitude you had for life.