A Feathered Nest: on mourning & family

The phone rang before 9:30, too early for a Sunday morning. My people know I sleep in. Even more rare, it was the landline, not my cell. Experience suggested it would be a spam call but something in the way that first sharp ring hit my ear made me throw off the covers and jump out of bed to answer. A familiar voice said hello and when I asked if I should fetch the person in my house I'd assumed they were calling, they slowed my roll, "wait, this is a community care call and you should sit down."

As an End-of-life Navigator its not unusual for Death to come calling, but its usually a loss for someone else I might bring care to. In contrast, this call brought that rush of disbelief and stinging sorrow that comes when someone we love is quite suddenly snatched away. I'd seen them three days before and we parted with their words of blessing set gently in the space between us, a side effect of our common embrace of radical kinship. We were not relations but were intricately related, if you see what I mean. Now I sat on the edge of my bed, weeping, looking in my heart for the words I'd carry to my adult daughter, with a hug and the truth that her friend has suddenly and inexplicably died in a late night car accident.

This day that I'd planned to be tremendously productive was immediately reconfigured, swerving directly into grief care. I texted her siblings, 'Sister Alert!' Without being asked both arrived within two hours, one with donuts and the other with groceries to make lasagna. Their dad helped me neaten up so we could visit with more ease. Even as adults (the youngest is 27) they have sister-tensions, but today all of that recedes to make room for sorrow and the necessity of care.

My immediate family, me and my husband and our three daughters, have this capacity to just be here for one another in a pinch, no questions asked. Watching us all settle in the comfort of this feathered nest is so humbling; each of us being very much who we are and bringing care to a moment that is unspeakably sad. I know that not every family has this, and I can't tell you what we did as parents and kids, together, that nowadays translates into showing up so generously when one of us is hurting. An ocean of gratitude would not be enough to express this relief I feel today, that when things are bad all over (and they are!) my family rises to meet the need.

Our friend, in her passing, has showed me something about us that I needed to see in action. That I can trust my people to know what to do and to be present for one another. Whether your loved ones are blood relations or chosen family, kinship heals. And every mourning person needs a family. All day our friend's smile has been dancing in my heart, along with her delicate way of dodging personal questions with the blessing she placed, so reliably, in the space between us.

Her last words to me were, "Life is beautiful, just gotta be open."

~

.... and some poetry to round out this day, the one when I learned our sister Christine has left us. Soar in peace and power sweet heart, then rest:

Shroud, by Dina Stander

from our fathers we are gifted

half the sky

the rest we must fly on our own

from our mothers we are gifted

half the earth

the rest we must dig on our own

I'm not sure how it is

that we begin to know

in our fingers in our hearts

how to spin threads of continuity

through & through to sustain

a coherent existence

in the grace of a last breath

it is this quilt of

sewn together elements

all of sky

all of earth

pierced & pulled whole

just then a summation

with this self made cloth

we cover our bodies our faces

when finally our eyes have closed

Max Coots: A Harvest of People

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:

For generous friends, with smiles as bright as their blossoms.

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

For continuous friends who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them.

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn; and the others as plain as potatoes and as good for you.

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter.

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time.For young friends, who wind around like tendrils and hold us.

We give thanks for friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might live.