The Language of the Heart
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about time. How memories begin to fade out and disassemble as life becomes more transparent. The promises of youth, once so full of life and expectation, now lay on the ground like spent leaves waiting in a vain attempt for the swirling wind to reanimate them or for the rain to quench their thirst.
There was a time when I danced in the breeze and felt nourished by the light of the Sun. Growing slowly, almost imperceptibly, longing to be reabsorbed back into its radiance and the vibrant arms that once held me and showed me how deep my roots go.
I wrote this some weeks back in a moment of reflection… I suppose it means, just like the young leaf on the tree, the time comes when your season is at an end. Once you’ve fallen from the heights and safety of the branches that nurtured you, a lot of time is spent being whipped around by forces that are not necessarily within your control. We slowly wear ourselves out until that organic part of us returns to the earth – but our Spirit ascends back into the embrace of the Light that made our life possible. Finally, the life you lived makes sense and at this homecoming everything you thought you knew will be shaken to its core in a loving and edifying way.
It is now nine years since my father died.
I remember the day clearly. It was the first time in my life that I would experience deep loss and inconsolable grief. That day changed me in ways I could never have imagined. It was very confusing and my relationships suffered as I did not have the words to explain the changes taking place within me. I kept looking for understanding on the outside not realizing it was not possible for people to see or feel what I experienced. Exasperated, I could not understand why those near and dear to me could not connect to my heart, I thought, certainly they should be able to do this if we loved each other. But always there were insurmountable walls to climb so I backed off and retreated into myself.
Thankfully, my husband never shied away from my struggles and patiently supported the process. My mother too. We all shared a heart-centered relationship stabilized by the invisible connection we shared.
Eventually, a different level of understanding seemed to open up and I began to write and find my voice. I started with poetry at first which quickly turned into song lyrics. Melodies would pour out of me and the release of caged emotions would follow. In this way I was able to open up to the source of creation within me which I had denied for far too long.
Much of that denial came from a form of self punishment over not having my own children. For a while, I distracted myself by awkwardly conforming to the rules and expectations of the world around me. I worked hard, moved around to make more money, bought/sold a few homes, and could never find peace with any of it (especially the absurdity of a 30 year mortgage). It hadn’t brought me any freedom or quelled my restlessness. I thought it would but it didn’t. What was I looking for?
I felt empty.
Not having my own children was a profound and soul wrenching experience. It plagued me as I counted myself as less than others and felt cheated for a long time. I hated myself and the story I wove around this drama became so toxic that it regrettably spilled out onto others. It also created mystery illnesses within my body – the mind/heart is a powerful mover of will and outcomes.
Doctor Laudenheimer looked like a Jewish nobleman. His silvery hair and beard, and his penetrating, melancholy eyes, made many people who first met him think of Freud. His wife was tall and strong, there was something fierce in her beauty, and her gray mop of hair seemed to radiate like a forbidding crown whenever she let her temper go. He was rather reticent when not in intimate company, she spoke incessantly as if she wanted to crowd out silence. This somehow appeared to be associated with the fact that she had no children. There is a peculiar tragedy about childlessness, a dim, just faintly perceptible form of sadness which is never quite expressed. Such people, deprived of a certain form of creativeness, seem to be, in another way, more in harmony with the sadness of creation.
“The Pillar of Fire” by Karl Stern
I recently discovered “The Pillar of Fire” when I was organizing my mother’s book collection. She was once an avid reader hungry to find answers to life’s mysteries and looking for solutions to help herself and her children. As a toddler I remember she would shuttle the older children out the door for school and then stake out her time to read. Sitting in her comfy chair, book in her hands, I would emulate her and sit next to the bookshelf and pull out all the books with pictures and pretend to read. Of course, she would have to clean up after me but she didn’t seem to mind. The books kept me quiet and I think we both enjoyed the small window of silence.
Shifting back to the present now, I kid you not, when I pulled this book off the shelf there was a sticky note on page 151 and I began to read the above quoted paragraph that the note seemed to anchor. Did I put it there years ago? Did my mother? I don’t know. All I know is, this writer sent me a message from the past that I needed to hear and it resonated deeply within my soul. Words are full of life, power and energy that echo for all time.
My father passed away on May 30, 2015.
In his memory, I’d like to share this short film with you. I wasn’t looking for it – it found me. Watch it and then read on…
Short film (8:32) – Father and Daughter
This reminds me of the silent film era and is my favorite style of story telling using only moving pictures, impressions, and music. It can be enjoyed by everyone because it uses the universal language of the heart. The care and thoughtfulness that went into this impresses me. Every detail in every frame invites you; it absorbs you and ignites the heart to decipher each significant unwinding action.
This is what my heart told me… Time is a circle not a straight line. For a time, we travel life’s path together until we are called away for one reason or another. Each season of life brings more change but always there is a nagging in the heart over being separated from a love so great we long for its return. We climb hill after hill and weather the many storms and seasons of life as the pain of loss persists and we find ourselves willing to enter the cold dark recesses of the night in hopes we’ll find what we are searching for.
In the midst of our search we build a life and, hopefully, learn how to love one another but the restlessness persists. Age advances and we slow down enough to realize we’ve been marching alongside our past and future with every step into the present. Constant reminders of what was, what is, and what will be. And then, one day, the landscape changes and the waters that concealed the mystery recede.
Life has come full circle. The path is still unclear but you are no longer afraid. And there it is… the final resting place of the vessel you thought was lost. Rest now in that memory and be reunited with the love you thought was gone forever but is now found. I see it not only as a love story between father and daughter but between the Creator and the Created.
That is my interpretation and maybe it is wildly off the mark. Maybe, the story is just simply about a girl who lost her father, lived, died, and was reunited. Am I overthinking it? What did you think of the film?
As I write this post it’s very difficult to stay focused.
I try to find time during the day to write but my mother does not like to be alone and she will often call out for me or walk to the bedroom door and sheepishly say “I’m lonely”. After about three interruptions I know it’s time to quit. I prepare myself to summon up the energy to write after she has gone to bed for the night. Unfortunately, the energy required to create doesn’t usually come and I’m left feeling the full force of my inertia.
[intermission]
It’s evening now and I am writing furiously trying to get this post finished. My headphones are on listening to heart healing frequency music with the door slightly open and then I sense a presence – it’s Mom standing in the hallway peering into the room through the small opening at the bedroom door. It rattles me a bit and I look at the time (10:45pm). She does this from time to time. The short window I had to write allowed me to get my thoughts organized but little else. I stay up with her and use massage techniques to get her to relax enough to go back to bed.
In the last 4 months it’s been particularly difficult to maintain my inner strength and enthusiasm. The dark shadow of resentment began to slowly grow and take hold of me. My tolerance for this situation hit a wall and I fell into a hopeless funk. It was bound to happen. You can’t go for as long as I have without any break in the daily routines of elderly care-giving and not start to crack. Eventually, as a provider of 24/7/365 care you become so enmeshed that you begin to lose yourself.
It unsettles me as I observe her go through the motions of each day in disquieted tones of somber vigilance.
Each afternoon, as I busy myself in the kitchen, she watches me from her position on the couch. I can feel her expectant gaze and when I stop to make sure she is alright I am always a bit startled by the look on her face – it is hard to describe. There is a low-burning intensity behind her fixed lips and pensive watery eyes. It’s as if all her years of unexpressed thoughts and desires are trapped and clamoring for freedom. Maybe, just maybe, it’s my own reflection I see.
In my next post I plan to continue with this thread and share some information I found that directly corresponds to both my own and my mother’s nervous system dysregulation symptoms. I realize this post is a bit disjointed but I want to say that I did finally come to a place of acceptance over not having my own children. My step-daughters, despite the hardships they endured in the choppy seas of divorce, made the choice to love me as their own. And the feelings of resentment over my current situation have abated, and like the short film above, I now wade through the thick grasses of the marsh, my path unclear but steady. Just keep walking forward in faith and you will find what you are looking for.
I miss my father. I will always miss my father. We’ll all be together again, Dad. Keep watching over us and we’ll keep you in our hearts until we see you again.
The saga continues next week… As always, thanks for reading. 🫡 🎖️ 🪦
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Love is eternal. . . . . Martin Prechtel, a Mayan shaman, says Grief and Praise exist together, when it comes to a loved one’s death.
Elizabeth, thanks for this… I will look him up. I just downloaded “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”. Haven’t started the read yet but look forward to it. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment.
“You can’t go for as long as I have without any break in the daily routines of elderly care-giving and not start to crack.” Ah, but the cracks are where the light shines in.
Each of our lives is an occasion we are endowed by our Creator to rise to. When we say ‘he’ or ‘she’ died, we too often interpret it as an end of something – indeed, an end to life. However it is only an end if we allow ourselves to become engulfed in loss, forgetting the blessing of having known the one who no longer sits beside us but instead now watches from above every movement of our being – never leaving nor forsaking the love we share with them. Love is eternal. We – are eternal. The sense of loss we experience when a loved one dies is merely a reflection of how deep that love goes. Therefore, we should not grieve, but rather rejoice that we were given the privilege in this life to experience a love of such magnitude that it has such a powerful effect on our heart.