There are some things that never leave us. It's been a long time coming but I've finally posted the draft I wrote the day of my grandmother's funeral. It's
here. Some stories are
here,
here , here but most are buried in this blog or elsewhere. Regardless these stories reverberate so much deeper and last far longer than I care to remember. The days spent with her in the nursing home after her demonic husband beat and abandoned her. Cleaning her fecal matter from her most private of areas because no one else would while she cried and longed for the man that put her there, forgetting he was the reason. The anguish and anger at both the justice system for doing nothing and the disease that took her far too soon but let her linger here far too long.
I cannot describe the last two years; actually, I can. Too Much. Maybe it will come one day; rising to the surface, like yeasty bread left to do its business. Words will make sense of it at some point, right? I mean, I moved to California and moved across the country back again for love. A love that morphed into something else and here I am, figuring it all out Again. An orphan three times over. I no longer feel sorrow or anger; only a void. We are not Family, nor are the people we choose called Family. We are guaranteed nothing. Just the moment we are in. Be it what it is. There is no hope, no desire, no joy strong enough to sustain us in perpetuity. All is flux. If this is what Buddhism promises as liberation, I'm still endeavoring to understand the difference between non-attachment and its lesser foster dog, Nothing.
I once posted this song in the hope I would find the Family I crave. It was, and in some measure continues to be, a hunger that is never really satiated. Perhaps that's okay... perhaps what we called heartbreak and wickedness is really something more like Natasha Khan's alter ego, Pearl. The call to our true selves.
Image credit: Ville Andersson, Dreyer 2012