Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon
Friday gratefuls: Mussar group. Tears. Lachrimae. Kate, always and still. Cousin Diane. Recovering. Grief. Good grief. Kep with his head on my pillow last night. Final bills for kitchen remodel. Within my budget. As I expected, but was not certain of. Seth Levine. White privilege, black businesses. Together? The American Day of Atonement. January 10th.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grief
Tarot: Eight of vessels: rebirth wildwood tarot
Grieving. At Toni Haas’ funeral I cried. Empathy with other mourners. Not for her, at least not much since I didn’t know her, only Rabbi Jamie. Perhaps for him. At Mussar yesterday. The conversation turned to being with those who are dying. How can we bring something worthwhile to the death bed?
Michele asked me if Kate and I had talked about her decision to die. Yes. Long, long pause as the memories of that moment filled my heart. Yes, I hate your decision, Kate, but I respect it and believe it is best for you. Now many tears, sobbing. I miss her so much. More tears.
Lachrimae. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus wept while asking God to spare him crucifixion. God does not spare him, yet the tears, the lachrimae, had purified his heart. Tears cleanse and refresh our soul. Purify us in the face of something we would rather not have in our life.
So lucky to have a place like mussar where I can cry and feel ok. No need to say sorry. Being held in a quiet container as those moments with Kate flooded through me, draining out and down my cheek.
I feel good that Kate chose to die. It was her decision and it came after a long, long period of suffering, of a life in pain, chronic illness. It relieved me of any guilt.
Now nine months plus later I have a confession to make. At least I don’t think I’ve said this here, or maybe anywhere except in my own head. On the day of her death she had sunk into a morphine induced coma. I left. Sarah stayed with her.
I got a call from Sarah shortly after midnight. She’s gone. I was asleep. BJ came, drove me into the hospital. I saw Kate’s body and it scared me.
The confession is this. I was not there when she died. And I feel terrible that I wasn’t. When he brought me home that late afternoon, Rich Levine asked if I wanted to change clothes and go back. I said no.
I covered up my guilt, even to myself, by saying I didn’t need to be there when she died because I knew how she lived. I call bullshit on that now. I did need to be there and I wasn’t.
Trying to be compassionate with myself. Trying to judge the whole of myself favorably as Rabbi Nachman suggested we do. Looking at myself. I was tired. Beyond tired, exhausted. Spent. The thought of sitting in the hospital room all night was more than I could handle. I needed sleep. So I left.
But I wasn’t there at the end. Folks in mussar were talking about how healing it is to be there when a loved one dies. I know this to be true. I knew it when I decided to leave.
If I look at myself clearly, I was three years of caregiving tired. I had given Kate all I had for a long, long time. It would have been better for me, and maybe, for her if I had been there. I wasn’t. And I don’t know how to console myself about that. Or, maybe it’s inconsolable? Too grievous an insult? No. I don’t believe that. Would not say that to another person.
What would Kate have said? You needed, you deserved the rest. And, you didn’t know when I would die. The doctor said two or three days. You planned to come back in the morning. I know you did. I love you and your not being there doesn’t change that. You were there, too, so many other times.
Eight of Vessels: Rebirth
“Meaning: By looking back at the past, acknowledging our mistakes, and learning from them, we grow and attain a new wisdom. The future awaits to be unfolded as we become the Eighth Vessel and receive powerful rejuvenating energies of rebirth.”
Wildwood Tarot Book
It was a mistake for me to not be with Kate when she died. Yes. It was also the mistake of a man burdened by mourning, by exhaustion, by a real and desperate need for sleep. A man who could not have known the hour of her death.
I will, I imagine, always feel bad about not being there. But. I can forgive myself. Bring chesed to my own soul.
Here’s why the Tarot has begun to resound so powerfully for me. It puts a card of rebirth, of life after mistakes, in my view on this very day.
A simple pasteboard image, some water, a few copper vessels, rocks like a mountain stream. That’s all. But I know where that eighth vessel hangs in my inner world. It’s beside the rushing waters of the White River in Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario. Lake Superior’s true North Shore.
I’ve hiked many times in that park, finding my way to the White River as it crashes and pounds its way downhill toward the Great Lake. Since my first time there Pukaskwa fired my imagination, my story telling, and now fills my eighth vessel. Reborn. Baptized in the Waters of Wilderness.
