Fireflies, and so much gratitude.
My Love Catcher Quilt from Sara and Ann arrived, and my heart was eased in so many ways. I'd been feeling better lately, but grief can be a tricky thing.
Out of nowhere, just an avalanche of emotions too hard to bear and your whole being seems to weep into exhaustion. The numbness, the confusion that comes from not being able to make any sense out of any of this… it's all easing, but far too slowly to be called kind. But I'm grateful it’s easing.
Manifesting appreciation is a difficult row to hoe in even the calmest of these days, but I’ve found it to be a sure way to a less painful heart – and any easing of the hurt only brings more gratitude in my book. My close friends have been amazing, and they know my deep appreciation. One of my dearest, Aji, wrote this to me a few days ago, and I wish I could touch hearts with words as she does…
“Grief is like a very long, winding river: It ebbs and flows, and there are places where it picks up speed and power and it carries you along against your will, straight over the falls into the boiling waters below, and you have to swim however you can to make it through to the next calm stretch. Personally, I think it's a river without end, just one that eventually eases out into a broad, calm stretch disturbed only by an occasional passing storm. Right now, though, you're still near the headwaters where the waterfalls are frequent and deep.”
And in the middle of this turbulence, my quilt from Sara and Ann arrived on the 13th, four months to the day since Juan passed. Such beautiful, heart-filled messages from so many of my friends here and I’m still stunned at how beautiful it is. Just amazing. Even more amazing is that it’s covered in Fireflies – it’s exactly as if Ria had sent me a message with the rest of you, and seeing it for the first time literally took my breath away. I know Juan and Ria are smiling down, so happy, and I couldn’t love them more if I tried.
My quilt together with Juan's
Juan’s passing away four months ago still has my heart somewhat raw. I think I’ve pulled myself back toward the light a bit, doing my best to keep my head above water. Work, life on the farm, the needs of our animals, it all goes on, whether I’m ready for it or not. It just does.
Perhaps it’s just the heartlessness of it all that has me still searching for meaning, struggling for answers to questions that perhaps should never be asked. Juan's cancer was definitely a heartless foe... to rise up in such a decent, honorable man – though no living being deserves this torturous struggle for even a moment. Not one.
But in the end it could not defeat his spirit. Juan’s walking on was gentle, a fading into the mist – and lighting up the sky in a way I will never forget. He was simply too exhausted for it to be any other way, and too filled with joy for the heavens not to put on such a magnificent display to welcome him home.
At last he was at peace – with himself, with his God. He was shining. And the last of a million precious memories engraved in my life. For that, and nearly 24 years of home and family and love, of great struggles and even greater victories – for all this, and all of you who are quilted around me always, especially Aji and Wings who have spent every moment of every day with me, I’m grateful from the deepest part of my heart. Te quieros
