Love Wont Quit

a rallying letter to us all

Photo by Michael & Diane Weidner on Unsplash

The stormy black sky offered me some comfort as I lay completely awake despite the many hours until morning. I got up to pee a few times, drank some water, and then scoffed at myself for drinking more water, knowing it just meant I would have to get up… again to pee. I tried some deep breathing, feeling the just-right temperature of the floral cotton sheets on my bare skin. Conjuring soft and dreamy images, trying and failing to recall what I had dreamt earlier in the night. I opened the window and patiently listened as the sounds of frogs, crickets, and various nighttime choruses poured into our quiet room. I rolled over and gazed at my sweet Husband and the gentle rise and fall of his chest. It seemed that sleep and I had parted ways for the night.

I rose from the bed, tip-toed out into the living room, and smiled sheepishly as our dog Henry perked up his head, hoping, with any luck, breakfast time might come early today. Sorry, Buddy.

I grabbed my phone from the counter and turned off airplane mode, fully surrendering to my awakened state. Blue light - hit me, baby.

My text messages greeted me with a stab in the heart -

A dear friend shared her precious teenage cousin had committed suicide. Instagram continued the pattern; with a few scrolls, I saw that another friend lost a 27-year-old coworker; he was running a marathon and just dropped dead. Two acquaintances had lost their beloved dogs to old age and were mourning their furry friends. I scrolled a bit more and saw a heart-wrenching post from a daughter to her deceased father - “Oh, how I miss you.”

I lay there shakily exhaling, with my hand on my heart. Goodness, it feels like the whole world is grieving right now.

I wondered, is it because I am so deeply enmeshed in grief that it is revealing itself to me without shame or patience? Seemingly from all sides? Perhaps it’s similar to how you buy a new car and then notice that same model of car all over the place ‘all of a sudden.’ Perhaps we are living in a funhouse of mirrors, creating a kaleidoscope of patterns that constantly repeat themselves until the teaching we’re meant to absorb is fully integrated.

I glanced up from my phone for a second, looking habitually over to the two framed photographs of my Mom and my Daughter. They sit atop our clothing dresser, smiling for everyone to see. I can recall every detail of the photos, every detail of the frames, even in a pitch-black room, blindfolded or 100 miles away.

-

Death Death Death is all around me. Like a good scholar, I try to pay attention to what the funhouse mirrors are revealing and do my best to dive in. Clearly, at this point in my life, I am meant to gather a deeper understanding of not only grief but death as a whole in our culture. I was blown away by the response to my previous two articles sharing my experiences on grief and loss (Thank you ❤️). I received crystal clear feedback that suggests - yes, this. we need more of this.

I agree wholeheartedly. More talking about death. More rituals around death. More workshops, courses, retreats, and community spaces focused on grief and grieving.

I am reading The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martin Prechtel, in which he shares the no-nonsense, spirit-led way in which his people grieve. When a death has occurred, it is 100% expected that the bereaved will be doing nothing other than wailing, screaming, sobbing, and throwing their body and soul completely into the art of grief. The grieving person will wander around the village screaming and wailing, and various members of their family and community will take turns holding them, bringing them water, and accompanying them while they grieve. In fact, it is considered very bad manners to the dead NOT to wail until your body can’t wail any longer. In the book, he shares how an American friend of his wanted to honor his mother by grieving with all his might, and threw himself into it in a similar fashion as mentioned above. As the casket began to lower, he dropped to his knees and wailed, screamed, cried, sang songs, and mourned. Soon, the ambulance was called on him by concerned family members who thought he was losing his mind.

It appears we as a society may be a teeeensy bit scared of the sheer power of our raw and wild emotions.

It occurred to me that in grieving with our entire body and soul, we may very well be touching death for ourselves as closely as we can. To feel yourself splitting and trembling in the earthquake of loss is terrifying. In the midst of it all, you realize with widened eyes that you will never be the same person you were before. Your beloved left their body and left you here without them. The You of yesterday has died along with them, and that is exhaustingly heavy at first. It’s scary to hold for ourselves, and it’s scary for others to witness. For a blessed time, we are a human being walking around with no edges, no plans, no boundaries of “what should be” because it’s all been blown to pieces. We are just bodies with hearts cracked wide open, with raw, fresh baby skin taking step by wobbly step towards our new reality.

It’s not sexy, and it’s not gonna sell magazines or lipstick. It’s the enemy of the beauty industry, actually. Giving yourself over to the mastery of Death as a teacher means that wrinkles are a welcome part of the package. Skin that tells a story of your sorrows, your smiles, your scars. Silver, radiant hair that becomes a beacon of your earned wisdom.

I looked in the mirror this morning and confirmed this notion. Freckled nose, tanned face, dark circles under my eyes, and a new permanent crease in between my brows. I noticed a wee grey hair peaking out, and I wasn’t surprised in the least. In fact, I celebrated it. “Well, yeah. That checks out,” I thought.

These highs and lows of life change our being from the inside out, if we let them.

-

After lying there thinking for a while, I resumed scrolling on Instagram. I realized it had begun raining again, hard. Thick air from a classic Southern summer storm coated the room, and I considered getting up to turn on the air conditioning.

All of a sudden, a shrill, desperate screech of a car going around the corner too fast came roaring through the window, and my heart began to race. “No no no no” I whispered. We live near a sharp curve on the highway that, legend says, has sent semi trucks off into a concrete ditch, some meeting their demise. The shrill screeching continued and escalated into a humongous crash, the sound of metal splintering with the sheer friction of impact amplifying it all.

I shook Sage awake “Honey, honey, someone just crashed outside. Get up.”

We threw on our clothes, muck boots, and flashlights and raced out of the house. I looked to my left and saw smoke billowing and a man wandering around near a smooshed car. I exhaled. Thank God, he’s alive.

A 911 call later, we sat with the man in our Kubota while he shakily recounted what happened. He had no external injuries and overall said he felt okay, just shaken up and aching a bit. His car (which he had just gotten fixed the week before) was completely totaled since it sailed head-on into our neighbor’s extremely sturdy metal car trailer. The trailer barely budged upon impact. The safety features of his car saved his life, and he was sitting before us as living proof of a miracle.

After the ambulance escorted him away, we soggily traipsed upstairs, hugged each other, and cozied in to drink chamomile tea on the couch. The hazy light slowly began to peer above the hillside. Yet another reminder of how unbelievably precious this life is.

-

I exchanged voice memos with a beloved friend of mine who works closely with patients who deal with brain trauma. She exclaimed how everywhere she looked, life was going bonkers. People were breaking down, co-workers were being diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses, her patients were struggling, and the frequency of this planet these days felt like it was absolutely cranking. I agreed, and we tried to grasp what the heck is going on and what it all means.

There are many cosmic perspectives and theories, with different languages and translations depending on the crowd you roll in. But basically, wherever you look on Earth, hard things are happening right now at a mass scale. People are suffering; there is chaos, and there is sorrow.

Although the part of me that is scared, sad, and feels beaten down wants to yell,

“CAN WE ALL GET A FKN BREAK?!” …

Every other inch of my being is vibrating with this magnetic, energetic, excited hum. “This is change. This is movement. This is freeing us.”

I think I’m writing this to say (to myself and to you) -

Whatever curveball life is throwing you, whatever sorrow is spilling from your eyes, whatever death you are dancing with in your world… it is laced with love.

It is always always always laced with love. Love stitches us back together in the same breath it rips us apart. We must remember this. Even when it feels like there are 100 elephants sitting on your chest, even when the sunshine of the day eludes you. Even when your beloved has left you here, and you feel your sorrow might drown you. EVEN THEN - it is laced with love.

Love is the thing; it has always been the thing.

-

Love is saving my life

and yours

and theirs

and ours

and I believe with absolute conviction

Love will

never,

ever,

quit on us.

-

So please, do what you need to do to meet these sorrows of life head-on. Assemble your village, call a trusted friend, grieve and mourn, and wail for as long as you need to. I beg you, release to the world the magic your emotions are trying to conjure. There is nothing quite like basking in the afterglow of a full-body cry. There is nothing like remembering the miraculous mystery of life as the salty tears of your well-worn sorrows dry and crackle on your cheeks. I think we come here for the E’s : Experience, Emotion, Expression - and I’m finding the latter comes after the holy rawness of emotion is unleashed.

I realized it can be simple to grasp if I so choose -

If I wasn’t supposed to be here experiencing this,

I wouldn’t be.

(and I wager the same goes for you)

With all my love and gratitude,

Rohini

Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash

My God,

how do I describe

the goodness in this world?

I am at the mercy of this fortune.

Oh Life,

Crack me open entirely.

Shape me, mold me, love me,

until I wholeheartedly absorb your

generosity into my blood.

May all that is birthed from us

be filled with this goodness,

Until one day,

it is all that remains.