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Archive Number 1032 | ||
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Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 23:08:03 EST
In a message dated 2/6/02 8:35:50 AM, jendj50@YAHOO.COM writes: << What I would like to be able to do is send something to be read at the memorial and send to his partner Omar. >> Tough request Jena. I have told folktales like the Cowtail Switch (ends with= no one is truly forgotten as long as someone remebers) or Finding a House without Death (the Buddha says bring a mustard seed from a house where no on= e has died and I can make medicine to restore your loved one to life) at memorial services. But for this setting where people have died violent and sudden deaths, those kind of "comfort" tales don't seem appropriate. I wrote a poem for a woman whose daughter died (it's on one of my tapes with= a story about my hospice volunteer experience with them). You might find it useful. Rage by Gail Rosen for Gilda No. I can=E2=80=99t comfort you. I won=E2=80=99t try to soothe you. Have your rage.You need this fury. Hold it. Cling to it. When there=E2=80=99s no air to breathe, perhaps your anger will sustain you. Are you glad she was in your life? Grateful that you held her for these too few years? Thankful for the rationed months, weeks, days, minutes? Gone. Finished. Ended. It was not enough! How could she go without you? You told her you couldn=E2=80=99t do this alone. I will help you build a monument, a shrine, to your anger. We will read her letters again and again. Touch the things she touched. Light the candles she loved. Listen to her music. You can call her name aloud, over and over until you have no voice, or tears. I will listen with you in the silence. Straining for the sound of her breath, her sigh. We will search for her in crowds, imagine her in dreams, see her smile in a child=E2=80=99s face. We will stare for hours at her pictures or turn away from them, heads pounding, vision blurred. They say the weight of your grief is the measure of your love. But knowing your pain is a celebration does not ease the agony of this broken bond, this severed limb. this void in the center of yourself. They say that death and life are parts of a whole like seasons, like the ebb and flow of tides. We can welcome the sun and then the stars in turn, the changing leaves. But there is no pattern here. She is gone. Gone. Where is the design, the rhythm? Why did the music stop? Some say she will always be with you, That you will carry her in your heart. But you don=E2=80=99t want spirit disembodied. You want soul shining out of eyes, warmth of skin on skin, holding tight, hearts pounding. You want a voice whispering secrets, harmonizing your melody, arguing loud and late into the night. There are stages of grief, I=E2=80=99m told. Denial, anger, bargaining, letting go, acceptance. You recite them like a mantra, a chant. Denial, anger, bargaining, letting go, acceptance. Searching for healing, for numbing, Denial, anger, bargaining, letting go, acceptance. Where is the comfort, the respite? Yes. You are glad her suffering is ended, Yes. She no longer feels pain, But your pain will not ease. Your fury will not cease. This is not what you prayed for. You want her back. Not in pain, not in fear. You want her whole. You want her well and happy. What container can hold your rage? Poetry? It is too measured. Music? Too tender. Humor? No, the edges of laughter are sharp and brittle. You try profanity, but those are words of living bodies, their actions and their functions. They will not encompass death. Blasphemy,then. But it shocks and disturbs only the living. It does not bring back the dead. Where is there room for your rage? Will we hear it? Will we hold it? Can we bear it? Do we have room for your rage? Where is there room for your rage? I will hear it. I will hold it. I can bear it. Here. I have room for your rage. Gail Rosen, storyteller 721 Howard Road Pikesville, MD 21208 gailstory@aol.com 410-486-3551 Check out the Healing Story Alliance website www.HealingStory.org Healing Arts SIG | ||