Three years ago this past Friday, May 28, my beloved went to the local emergency room and said, “You must do something with me; I am a danger to myself.”
Fourteen months later she ended her life.
This past Friday, a date selected prior to appreciating its 2018 antecedent, I drove my boys, ages eight and nine, to their new forever home, my care of them no longer an option given how life has unfolded since Dear’s death.
Nearly 30 years of devotion spread over six golden retrievers, a beagle named Harry, and a 20 pound Scottie rescue who was boss from the moment he bopped across the threshold, has ended––permanently most likely.
That same day, two beautiful framed photographs of Dear and me that I hadn’t even known were lost, were returned to me.
Coincidence is an illusion, I find. A label we put on synchronicity that boggles our ego-oriented sense of what’s what.
Perhaps the most important choice I’ve ever made has been to consider every experience––even my own colossal insanity––as a note in the Grand Symphony of Existence that is awakening us to a conscious realization that we are all exactly, precisely the same: a manifestation of whatever is the Essential Stuff of the Universe, commonly known as God.
Why do I choose to see things this way?
Simple. I’m selfish.
Not in the hooray for me and fuck you sense. But in the sense that, in the face of anything, I want joy, a peaceful heart, delight, humor, and an appreciation of how this moment will enrich my self-understanding ––even if I’m also shaking my head at how thoughtless I can be.
The only way I know to do this is to engage with persistence and enthusiasm those practices that eventually will quiet my mind and heart so that I am able to hear ever more frequently, in every experience, the whisper of the universe.
The whisper I was blessed to hear this past Friday.
“Hello playmate. I am here.”
Here’s to selfishness! Whenever people say to me – in response to how I reacted to a difficult or unfair situation – Well, you’re a bigger person than I am, I say no, I just don’t want to suffer. (apparently, sometimes I still do……… practice, practice, practice!)
What a blessing to have the gift of Dear’s presence on what must have been a difficult day. May you fly, free of tethers, to this next exciting chapter of your life, Steve.
This is so very lovely. I am moved to tears of joy for you and Dear, for the truth you write, for me knowing that truth and trying to live it more fully, for your boys in their new home, for your next part of the journey.
I wish you well,
Julie