I cannot believe that you are no longer here. It has been almost a month and I have not really allowed myself to think of your passing except when I pray for I continue to pray for your soul my most heartfelt wish being that you are already with our Lord in paradise, no longer in purgatory. I believe you are already there with the many whose lives you have touched and transformed and who therefore are praying fervently the same prayer that I am. But call it insurance. Plus I know my prayers will not go to waste for they will help others who are still in purgatory so this is my win-win prayer for you.
Although I cannot quite put into words my grief for it changes all the time, from inchoate to full blown depression (I’ve put on weight from all the emo eating I’ve indulged in to fill the emptiness inside, chocolate being my food of choice which, I am sure, you would approve), and I have isolated myself away from well-meaning friends who are grieving as I am for my grief is private and unique something I am not quite ready to share with others.
My memories range from the whimsical - all those magical times we shared: playing as girls, listening to the single Pappa loves Mama, trying to heal that beautiful blue butterfly we found in your garden; you happily showing me around Cambridge; that gorgeous summer’s day in Heidelberg when you drove down from Allerheiligen in the Black Forest to spend the afternoon with me; eating ice cream in wintery Boston, walking around the touristy surroundings of Faneuil Hall; those three life-changing weeks in Bangalore at Pastoral Counselling School where I first experienced God’s compassionate and forgiving mercy through you; our final carefree outing together at Sonya’s Secret Garden in Tagaytay - to the terrible: that Sunday morning you called me when you experienced great pain which we later realized was when the tumour had burst; to P feeding me Korean ginseng chicken soup when he broke the news of your cancer to me (I remember telling him I would go mad if I lost you for that was the year we both lost J.); watching you suffer through chemo that first round, the only relief provided by my wedding day; then the brief respite when you received the all clear PET scan results... until the cancer returned and the mad rollercoaster of grief began yet again as you went through the suffering of treatment which morphed all too quickly from preventive to palliative.
It was hard watching your decline, that last year, that last month, that last week and that last morning. If I could have, I would have taken the suffering and pain away from you, yet all I could do was watch the awfulness of it all, pretty much helpless.
There is so much love within my heart for you, this gift from God, this bond of pure love that has never changed except to grow stronger through the years from the time I could remember. I know it will never die even though you are not here physically, materially.
Part of my grief is selfish for I am wondering how am I going to grow spiritually without you challenging me, encouraging me, guiding me, and loving me, even though I know this will never stop, for your spirit lives on in my heart, and I know you are still with me through our shared Catholic faith.
There is, of course, great consolation in my desolation, knowing you are gained eternal life and that you are free from the chains of that odious cancer. For there is a lightness within my heart, as Emily Dickinson wrote, the thing with feathers that never stops singing - at all. You have become that thing with feathers, that little singing bird that will go on singing through the storms and gales of my life.
Like Mary Magdalene I need to let go of known perceptions, comforting in their familiarity, to embrace a whole new reality of life, new life, resurrected life. Our lives together have just begun. The love never stops - ever...
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