Easter...passover...holiday...and Grief

[mfh]

Easter was once our big holiday...it was spring...new life...good hiking most years...sun...and Alleluias resonating through many years of spirituality. This Easter is tough....I will have breakfast with friends. I passed on a dinner invite that I KNEW I would not enjoy (this is huge) and am choosing to stay home and paint, take a drive to special places....create down time so needed...solitude that I know will mix with loneliness but everything does.

Lesson I was reminded of this week: it takes very little for me to lose my center...and when I do, I need to retreat....again.

I wish each of you a day that honors life....I found this quote. "Easter (or any day) says youcan put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there." ~Clarence W. Hall

This is a poem I selected for Bill's funeral (which was on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter 2 years ago). We loved e.e. cummings and read him together often.

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any--lifted from the no

of all nothing--human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

I know he is celebrating resurrection....somehow...somewhere.

[kayc]

Mary, I think it takes very little for most of us to lose our center...the wise one seeks to realign with it again.

[mfh]

I agree, Kay. I am now up to my ears in the May issue of my publication and that helps me to center believe it or not. Mary

[mik]

Grief seems to be even more overwhelming when the world is waking from the winter darkness and cold. One can only hope for brighter days that may never come and the longing to be once again reunited with those we have lost. Despair enevlopes me as the world turns to rebirth. I feel cheated and lost. Perhaps things will change someday....

[HAP]

Beautiful poem Mary. I like Cummings too, especially when he gets goings.

Quiet Good Friday here. Going to my in-laws for Easter.

Peace,

Harry

[mfh]

Quiet Good Friday here also...as well as tomorrow...by choice...some down time. Working on a painting of masks...gathering symbols....glad most taxes are done...you are coming around the bend.

yes, cummings at full speed is great.

Mary

[melina]

Have had two sons home, plus my youngest son's girlfriend. It's been nice having people around, but this morning - Easter Sunday - the blues hit me as soon as I awoke. It was hard getting up, and now hours later, I still feel down. We celebrated Easter when the kids were small - coloring eggs and hiding them, hiding Easter baskets. My husband would always be up early, baking rolls and surprising us with a big breakfast.

Melina

[mfh]

The waves of grief continue to come even when family/friends are around...that is so hard to get used to. In less than two weeks it has been Bill's death, funeral, burial, my birthday and today Easter. A slew of waves of grief have accompanied all that. I know you hurt, Metteline,...sometimes when everyone is around it even hurts more for the memories of all we lost return. I was just thinking this morning how Easter has changed in my life so many times. As a kid it was processions, lilies, church, new clothes, Easter baskets and candy (after 40 days of no candy in Lent), relatives visits and a huge ham dinner. Married to Bill was quiet, sometimes visiting family sometimes a brunch and a walk through the arboretum but always a celebration...sometimes church but church was not as predominant for us...though spirituality was/is huge. Today, I awoke alone in silence. Though I am planning to go to breakfast with friends and brunch with others (thank God for friends). But this day which was a HUGE day for us in it meaning and celebration has now receded into the background of my life...the tears have moved to the foreground this morning. Death is not "just" the loss of the most important person but the losses beyond that person's absence are too numerous to count and keep flowing into each day.

I hope your blues recede and your time with family brings you some hint of peace or joy or both.

Peace,

Mary