The Tao of Té - Part 3

The Tao of Té – Part 3

 

I have done quite a bit of reflecting these past few months since my father’s passing. Today he would have turned 59.

Now to someone in their teens or twenties…that is a pretty old number. In your 30’s, it really is not. As my friend is on her path dealing with her father’s passing, it brings to mine all the things that have dramatically changed for me, and indeed, my perspective on the world.

One of the first things to change after Dad passed away was how I viewed dying and grieving. Trite sayings that automatically come out of our mouths became my enemy. I began to think of all the things NOT to day to someone who has lost another in their life. My sister was told many of these things by a lifelong family friend whom had lost his father a year prior. Here is what he had to say, and I do apologize for not being exact, but it is more a paraphrase. Not all of them apply to everyone but they did apply to how I was feeling at the time and how I’ve felt since then. They may not always be applicable but they helped me realize that grief, and life itself, is primarily in the eyes of the beholder. One person’s life is not another’s.

·         It was his time.

·         He is in a better place.

·         I know what you are going through.

·         In time you will feel better and get through this.

·         His suffering is over and he is with his maker.

Logically I know that some of these are true but these are statements I heard countless times during the memorial. They are simply conversation holders. Words meant to comfort the person speaking them. They did absolutely nothing for me. It does not mean that I was ungrateful. It simply meant that my grief is my own.

How do I know he is in a better place? My father’s beliefs did not always align with my own. His view on religion and spirituality was not my own.

No one knows if it is someone’s time. Would you say the same of a child taken from his or her mother by a drunk driver? A serial killer? No one can say for sure the hour or minute of their passing. My mind was racked with thoughts on how we could have done more, how we could have changed doctors, changed his lifestyle decades earlier.

The hardest is: I know what you are going through. My answer is this: NO YOU DO NOT. I cannot sit here and tell one of my best friends that I know what she is going through even though we have both lost grandfathers and now fathers. My grief, emotions and reactions are not hers. Her father and their love was not my own. Even within my family we each grieve differently.

I do know that in time I will not grieve as much but I do not know when that time will come. I do not know when there will be a day that does not start, or end, with tears over the loss of my father. Grief has no time limit. As my grief begins to fade, it will be moved to grief for my mother and my sisters. It will transfer to my grandmother who has lost her oldest child.

 

If I have learned one important thing from my father’s passing it is this: take each day as it is and leave a footprint in the sand. Take no offense from others because it may simply be a misinterpretation. Love and laugh as often as possible. View the world with peace in your heart and simply live in the day. Eliminate the negativity in your life, even if it means walking away from people you like.

There is no magic cure, no pill you can swallow that makes life better. But a laugh from a friend, coworker or even a funny picture can momentarily change your mood. Each of those moments leads to something better.

Each day wake with the idea that TODAY is going to be a great day and it is the present. Worry is for the future which never comes. Regret is for the past which can never be changed. But today is here. This moment is here and only I can change this moment. Only I can change myself, my actions and my reactions.

Do not look for me in the past

For I am not there.

Do not look for me in the future

For I am not there.

Look for me within your heart

For that is where I reside.

Forever in the moment

That you create.

Each moment is but a drop

In a bucket that overflows.

Where you are, I am always.

 

Namaste my friends and loved ones.