Blazing

The tree in front of my house is blazing red. It's magnificent. To transform like that, from bare bones to a deep, lively green, to that bold red hue...it's elegant. Stunning. And fleeting. Each morning I go outside and find more and more leaves laying on the ground, turning a soft brown, saying goodbye to another perfect season.

I think of my life in chapters. Chapters can be defined by years, by experiences, by seasons. I've had some really swell chapters, really swell. Others were less desirable. All of them have come and gone, blazing like my red-leafed tree.

I feel a sadness as my tree loses more and more of its color. It's a saying goodbye. And it's a simple reminder. What if right now, these very days in which we are going through our normal, everyday motions, what if these are our red blazing moments? As a witness to so many dying peoples' experiences, I see autumn, their leaves unraveling from their bodies, stripped of their rich colors. Soon gone to winter.

I think it's my job in life to be blazing. In my routines, in my friendships, in my every day encounters, I have the option of letting these moments pass me by, unappreciated in their simplicity and in their mundanity. Or I can be bold and red. Not overbearing and intense. Just appreciative. And happy.

Life comes and goes for each and everyone of us. But right now we are all here, and we all get to be totally awesome.

When someone you care about is grieving....

There are things that you say when someone dies. Rest in peace. I'm sorry for your loss. Thinking of you. These are all important things to say when someone has lost a piece of their heart, but for me, even though those words are entirely appropriate, they feel trite, small. Of course the problem is not in these words but merely in the finiteness of language.

What I want to say to the family of my friend who has just died is something that I can not say in words. I want to stand next to them, hold their hands, and not talk. I want them to know that I (among so many others) am here, that they are loved, and that it is okay to cry, to get angry, to plead, to mourn, to grieve. It's okay to hide yourself under a wall of blankets. It's okay to scream. It's okay to not entertain the swarms of people visiting. I want to be there in person, with a hand on their backs, shedding my own tears but saying nothing. Because when it's all said and done, the grief can be done by no one other than the grieving.

As a hospice nurse I have seen so many people die. I have sat with grieving families, held the space for people to cry, watched the very raw emotion of grief unfold in loved ones. But grief, no matter how well I understand it professionally, always feels different when it happens to me and to people that I love.

I am states and years away from this loss, and I acknowledge that I am but one person, one person among the countless others that love and care for this family. But I can only speak for myself.

To my high school boyfriend and lifelong friend, my heart aches that you have lost your brother.
To his parents, my heart aches that you have to live through the nightmare of burying a child.
I wish I could say or do something to make this not hurt, something to make the sting of this new reality be somewhat less biting. But I'm stuck with the limitations of language and the prayers to hold you up in love as you navigate this sad, sad loss.

Bittersweet life.

Feel it.

This scary, beautiful, heartbreaking world.

Tornadoes and cancers and moms who will no longer be picking up their children.

We're not kids anymore. These things are so real now.

Last night I sat with a grieving family, a large family, intensely divided in their decisions about what to do with my patient. My patient who had cancer yes, but had been living her life well. My patient who came to the hospital with a pneumonia. Who through the course of the week had suffered enough respiratory failure that she required an intense and uncomfortable oxygen administration in order to keep her alive. During my shift it was the middle of the night and emotions were raw. Eventually her husband took me aside and told me it was time to take the breathing treatment off. So as I was discussing the plan with the doctor, he went to her, his wife of whom he had just celebrated 50 years. And her, under her bipap machine but still completely alert, she held him, tears running down her face, down his face. He crawled into bed with her and they knew it was the last time they would hold each other. It was one of the most raw and tender moments I have ever seen. And with a nod from the husband I administered the morphine. I took off the ridiculously uncomfortable breathing machine, and with her family by her side, she started to slip away. It took longer than most thought, and during that time her family gathered, and cried, and even shared in some laughter. Their matriarch was dying. Two hours later she took her last breath.

Each moment that we have each other is a treasure. Each time you pick up your child from school is a blessing. I think many of us know, on some sort of a spiritual level, that you have to appreciate the present moment. But that knowledge often escapes us. Often we are focused on our memories and our plans, and in doing so we lose sight of the precious moments that are happening now.

I know I am not alone in my struggle to find peace with the fact that so many children just died while a tornado ambushed their elementary school. Peace in tragedy. It's such a dichotomy.

And yet, it somehow happens.

We are born into a world where everything changes. Where things grow and things die. We open up our hearts to love, we feel connections to each other, and we do so at our own risks. We are vulnerable creatures, and sometimes our coping mechanisms are unhealthy.

I like to think we do our best.

I will tell you, as the silent observer last night as I watched my patient die, I couldn't help but feel touched by the amount of love that was in that room. A matriarch was passing, and the family was there, grieving, and she was not alone. And she knew she was loved. It was the kind of death scene you see in the movies, the kind where you get to say what you need to say, where you get to say goodbye to warm flesh and blood.

It's the kind of goodbye we should wish for. But not the kind of goodbye we are promised.

I heard a saying once that the only way to pass a storm is to go through it. With the tornado that occurred yesterday this is quite literal, but for us observers, this is so importantly metaphorical. There is pain in this world, and we will feel it because we are loving creatures. But it is my belief that the pain can not be avoided. You must take it head on, let it wash over your body, come out of your eyes, come out of your muscles and your bones. Feel it. And then, let it go.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/oklahoma-teacher-heroes/65461/

I never saw a mountain that did not give me pause

I never saw a mountain that did not give me pause.

I'm a humble servant bowing to a king.

Delicate mountain flower, climbing through the rocks,
growing to become beautiful. Inspiring others,
the flowers around him, the animals that pass by.

Small, unique life,

a piece of a mountain, 

a piece of a landscape, 

a piece of a heartsong.

Earth, its dynamic life force,

only moving forward through each wise cycle.

Summer, the tall, firey beauty

Fall, the elegant elder

Winter, the strong dark giving way to fallen petals and seed.

Spring, the young ones

the young ones who make their way up to the sun,

to shine their glorious faces,

to experience their own life.

Sunandrainandwindandpeopleandandstruggle

They live. They die.

And the rain, it comes, and it cleanses our hearts

And it pours from our eyes

And it enters our bodies.

and we touch each other

sharing in the heartsong of each glorious flower,

grieving when the beautiful songs we are used to hearing

succumb to winter.

And when the strong hand of grief

let's loose its grip on our heart

we are free to keep listening, 

free to sing from our own hearts the heartsongs we remember so well.

Mountains are songs,

waiting to be sung

born from songs we never forget.

--Summer Nicklasson 2/20/12