BREAK THROUGH TO LOVE

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Grief can be the garden of compassion.” ~ Rumi 

Rumi goes on to advise us to keep our hearts open through everything. Pain can be our “greatest ally in life’s search for love and wisdom.” 

I wonder Is it true? Our greatest ally? As I ask, memories surface. Visions come. With them I feel a measure of both the pain and the love that were present and poignant in some times of grief

Can you recall such times? I sense we all have them. We at least have the opportunity for them. But sometimes we stifle them.

I’m sharing three of mine here. The last one is about a time I stifled an opportunity.

It’s weeks after my mom died. There was actually beauty and peace in the moment of her death. I was at her side. I had been for hours, witnessing her active dying. I was somewhat prepared, as prepared as one can be for her mother’s final breath. The pain that broke me open happened later, several times. I think this phenomenon happens for many of us. For a moment, we forget our loved one has died. We wake in the morning and for a second or two, we feel a normalcy, as if nothing had changed in our lives. And then we remember: a loved one died!  Grief sears again. Sometimes it happened midday. Suddenly I had the urge to call her. I wanted to talk with her about something or about nothing; I just wanted to talk. For a moment I forgot she was gone. But before reaching for the phone, I remembered. The grief opened pain but held so much love too. Has it happened this way for you?

The second instance happened in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. On the news, in the midst of all the ways it was being covered from various perspectives, there was a segment showing compassionate reactions of people throughout the world. I remember seeing many women weeping, weeping for us and with us. One older woman, kneeling on the ground, somewhere in Europe, especially touched my heart. She was keening, almost howling. Seeing her pain deepened my own and yet brought me through to love. Love for her. Love for all of us. She was not some stranger on the other side of the world. She was a neighbor, a friend, a sister. I think of that woman sometimes, like now. And again I feel hope as well as love. If it happens only now and then, it can happen all the time. Actually, I think such caring happens more often than we think. 

In the third memory, I’m at a funeral mass. The death was caused by a horrific accident that “shouldn’t have happened.” But such accidents do sometimes happen, don’t they?

When I saw the raw tenderness in our grieving group, especially among the men who normally kept their feelings at bay, or at least masked, I felt as if something cracked opened in me. I suddenly felt a strong urge to quickly step over and around everyone in my pew, run outside the church, and run some distance away so that I could not be heard inside the church. A large, loud sound, a wail, wanted to come up and out of me. I think it might have been a howl, or many howls of grief. But it was a tender moment in the service. And I didn’t want to make a scene. So I remained in my seat. I have sometimes wondered what that was, why it was, and what would have happened if I had acted upon that urge? Back then, and now, it seems like it was some huge collective grief that wanted to be expressed and released. It seemed as if it held my every hurt and the hurts of humanity, over time. The painting “The Scream” comes to mind. Perhaps besides not wanting to disturb the funeral, perhaps I was frightened by the strength of whatever it was. And yet, I think it was more likely a breakthrough than a breakdown. And even if it was a breakdown, I believe it would have led to a breakthrough of greater love, compassion, and peace.

I don’t know. But I also believe that so much more love is available to us and for us. Especially in this time of high stress, let’s be fully open to greater love.

With courage,
Charlene

#dailyinspiration #inspirationalquotes #deathanddying #grief #compassion  #9/11

Charlene CostanzoComment