This post was supposed to be about Catbird (she sends her regards, and I have recently found out that I am not crazy; they are indeed, or can be pretty sociable birds), but we’ve been interrupted. Death does that.
I remember when my dear friend, and bit of a fairy godmother in my public education teaching years, wrote her first book of poetry. This was the first poem:
Death Barged In
In his Russian greatcoat,
slamming open the door
with an unpardonable bang,
and he has been here ever since.
He changes everything,
rearranges the furniture,
his hand hovers
by the phone;
he will answer now, he says;
he will be the answer.
Tonight he sits down to dinner
at the head of the table
as we eat, mute;
later, he climbs into bed
between us.
Even as I sit here,
he stands behind me
clamping two
colossal hands on my shoulders
and bends down
and whispers to my neck:
From now on,
you write about me.
She wrote it after her daughter was murdered. The writer in me never forgot the last line and the clamping hands: From now on, you write about me.
Death can be jostling, but we cannot escape it. In fact the harder we turn away from it, the tighter the grasp. I mean you cannot live every moment thinking of death, but it is uncanny how we have removed it from life —even though it is a part of Nature. Catbird has actually slowed me down to that, remember last week’s caterpillar, Big Guy. Also, there is this unfurling that is happening within me that birds have a very potent invitation for us, living in two worlds: One of Earth and one of Air.
I attended a birthday party and a memorial service in a 48 hour period and both women had children. Both had sons. (One also had a daughter, but we insert ourselves at times and that draws our contemplation).
The memorial service quietly asked: What are you leaving as legacy? This woman left undeniable love, kindness, and determination. It was in the words everyone spoke and in the eyes of her children.
I watched her son, composed by concerted choice — wrangle his hands and look up at the ceiling in one moment. I thought of the pliable solitary fabric of expanded consciousness that is grief. There is a journey for those that shepherd others in their transition. We don’t talk about it in most circles anymore. It creeps us out, I guess. The inevitable fact that we will indeed die. Popular culture seems to prefer turning towards an eternal summer, buttressed by a mirage of controlled safety.
But if you happen to be graced with the people who meet death, talk about death and tell you how sacred and precious death is — you are blessed. There is a great (albeit heavy) gift of being Death’s witness. You live outside of time and confines. You are here, but not tethered. You can see everyday life around you, but it slips past you. You can feel the very infinite expanse of a moment as a life expands, and contracts readying for flight. Just like a bird, here and gone. Here and gone.
That flight too touches the witness. Just as the poem says, Death has commanded the space, and in that declaration is Life. Death is significant as it hallmarks life, warmth, love, moments lived and moments perhaps expected, slipping away. The love doesn’t leave. In fact, it can be felt, like the air on a humid day. It is what walks us through the threshold.
The memorial service was of a strong woman with a not so easy life. Many children from the neighborhood spoke of her kindness, now as young adults; old enough to hold stories, but too young to be watching her go. It reminds me of our concept of fairness. Death can squash that rationalization very quickly. Without effort or explanation.
I know very few people who are ready to meet death. One of my closest friends that died told me he was not afraid of death, but he would miss the faces in our family. It has been my most precious key to turn over and over. Fly not too far away from that fact that you are mortal. Do not pretend that death would be easier when we both know that the impulse of life is strong in us all: human, caterpillar and catbird. And yet, do not clip your wings and hang so heavy on the ground to think that you will not fly. That you are not of a space and construct that is greater than the weight of living, let the mystery soar + catch you on the rising wind. So you are neither there or here, but somewhere present to the precious.
Here is a phenomenal documentary on death.
And a book or two or three, in no particular order or preference.
The wonderful thing about meeting in this space here, The Golden Thread, is that the promise is to share the interconnectedness of everything. A place to write and contemplate, I can think of no greater contemplation than making space for death so that there is even more space for life. As we left the memorial, my son ran ahead of me toward the playground and stopped midstream.
“Oh my goodness!” he exclaimed, with and emphasis on “Oh” because that is a thing that we do. “Mom, a feather for you.”
He ran the baby down feather of a Canadian goose back to me and put in my hand, and I thought of life’s tender cruelty, and a mother shifting her weight in heaven to find new ways to stop her own son and shower him with wonder and that her absence was the very punctuation needed for my presence to not be swept up in the mundane if only for a moment.
May we allow ourselves to be interrupted, to be reachable to what is all around us.
To live.
And honor those who fly before us.