I dreamt of E last night. We were chatting and she was doing what she did best, challenging me to live out my vocation to the fullest by using what gifts I have been given; hence this post. She was telling me to write. I have not been open to dreaming about E until yesterday for I felt, somehow, that if I dreamt of her, it would mean her passing was final and I wasn’t quite ready to accept that reality even though my brain knows she is no longer here.
It is hard letting go. It is painful; to let go for one has to process one’s emotions by naming them: the grief, frustration, fear, horror, loss, bewilderment, regret, anger and hurt... I also have to acknowledge how deeply I mourn her passing, allowing all the sadness I felt from as far back as four years ago to surface and sit with it. Most of all I have to acknowledge the deep grief I felt seeing her suffer in those last days, the sense of helplessness I felt from not being able to make her feel better.
There is such great pain in seeing someone you love suffer and knowing that whatever you do to help in concrete terms is futile and pathetic. My love was simply not enough. All I could do was stand by and weep at the awful decline wrought by the cancer. The horror and the sorrow runs deep.
Then there is the sense of loss from the aching void her death has left behind. Even though I did not live with her, her absence is palpable. And yet, as one of her dear friends said to me, E is still here, but in a different way. P said she was able to connect to E through prayer, spiritually, and I guess I need to learn to do the same.
As Christians who believe in eternal life and the communion of saints, I get that we are still united through love and we will eventually experience a union in heaven that far supersedes the way we have experienced love on earth, but I still miss the conversations, the closeness of shared experiences, the familial love we had for each other for over 50 years that was so rooted in our mutual love for Christ in latter years.
My gratitude runs deep that God in His infinite wisdom and mercy saw fit to gift the two of us with the gift of the other. Our relationship was pure gift, so much so that not even death can separate us fully for our bond of love is unbreakable, founded, as it were, on the Creator’s own love.
I know in days to come that I will still be guided by her spirit which was so deeply grafted on Christ Himself. I continue to ask for the grace to transmute my grief into something more powerful, something that purifies the way I love those around me into a self-giving and humble love that brings healing, wholeness and great spiritual joy.
I let go of the past today, wonderful as it was, and I look to the future with hope and excitement for E is still with me, guiding me on my way forward. Thanks for stopping by in my dream, E. Love you much.
