A very good friend of mine is in treatment for cancer. Her body, already scarred from surgery to excise the ‘emperor of all maladies’, is injected with chemotherapy drugs regularly; her life as mother and wife upended with the discovery of a lump. This is my same friend who turned up at the hospital very close to this time nearly four years ago while Heiko was an outpatient and receiving his weekly dose of chemo. She brought him pizza (which he ate) and made him laugh. I remember her visit in particular because she had ‘just dropped by’ and because she didn’t appear to be scandalized by his tiny, scarred and sored body or by the sadness and fear that hid in the corners of the room. Her robust laugh and vigour found a place on his little bed and she breathed life into us – making that one hospital visit so much better than if she hadn’t come.
In an email recently she wrote: “Yes, I am going through a lot. But I am very present in every moment given to me – and will work to make it all count, good, bad ugly, and fantastic. It is my fate. And I would not change it.”
I was really struck by her words knowing as I do the dark valley she has gone through to get to this place of wisdom, this place of rest. It has not been without some angry fistfuls of dirt being hurled in the air.
I relate. I relate. How many times have I arched my back and raised my own fists in the air? How many times fallen to my knees?
Last time I wrote for Sweet Impossible Blossom I found myself using rivers as metaphor to explain my experience of life since we lost Heiko. Rivers seem to have become the central image of a lot of my writing. I suppose it is because I have a very distinct feeling that life really is a river, not a river of water obviously, but a continuous flow of energy that is ever-moving, ever- drawing us onwards. What the current brings us is experience – neither good nor bad – it itself is neutral. It is we that pass judgement on it – resist it if it hurts, embrace it if it nourishes. What I have been learning is that resistance to Heiko’s death (and other losses) always brings pain and suffering. Surrender to it – brings peace and rest. We have no choice in what happens to us but we always have sovereignty over our response. Do our choices bring life? Or death? Not just for ourselves but for others we are in relationship with – near and far, known and unknown, human and animal, plant and stone.
I am “lucky” in some senses. As my friend Janis once said to me “you now have a ‘star-child’ to guide your way.” And I completely agree with her. Heiko is always with me and every good thing that happens is because of him – my ‘star-child’. I love and trust him (and the mystery to which he now belongs) so implicitly that I now wait patiently in expectation for what may come next. It is not that my life is now going to be a series of good times. It is more that I know that I will be given the love and support I need to go through whatever happens. There is a well of love (a root, as Catherine M. wrote so eloquently in her comment last time) at the heart of the world. Heiko points me to it. Kate has found it too it seems.
Take this experience for example: Last year, a few days before Christmas, I was walking down the street in Bloor West Village. I was deep in a haze of sorrow, tears literally welling up in my eyes as I made my way home past the children all bundled up in their wagons and Christmas without Heiko just days away. Ahead, I could see a canvasser. As I walked past, the young man approached me and asked: “Do you have a child in your life that you love?” It was such an intimate question, addressing as it did what was most central in my mind that I stopped. “Save the Children needs people like you to care for children who don’t have anyone to love them.” I felt a soft stirring deep inside. Heiko was behind this encounter. I said I would think about it. The young man was gracious and kind with my indecision. I went home, did my research (it was helpful, it must be noted, that I knew the Director of the Canadian chapter of the organization as a man of deep integrity) and signed up as a regular contributor. It is now my main charity.
“Where is this going?” you might be tempted to ask. Well, it so happens that two days ago I was out in the streets of London looking for a cobbler to repair my boots. The move to London from The Netherlands hasn’t been so easy and I was in a bit of a dispirited mood. We were in a very lovely part of town called Primrose Hill trying to find the address of the cobbler. As we walked I noticed a thrift shop for Save the Children. We continued passed it focused as we were on finding the repair shop. After walking the length of the street and not finding it we decided to turn around and try again. This time, as we went past the thrift store (which I now noticed was called Mary’s Living and Giving Shop) I felt this little stirring. “Let’s go in here,” I said uncharacteristically as I am not normally a thrift shop goer, catching the words on the sandwich board outside “Desperately needing volunteers” as we did. And with little more than that I am now their latest recruit. I don’t like clothing shopping, I hate selling things and I have no retail experience but somehow I know this is exactly what I should be doing. I trust the river of life now. At the best of times I even open myself to it. It helps that I have such a beautiful star to guide me.
Kate alludes to fate in her email to me, and to a hard-won but rapturous YES to her life. I am inspired by her courage (and her humour which I am sorrily lacking I realize) and like her am also trying to make the most of what is left of my life. I still struggle with deep pockets of depression but on clearer days I have a profound sense that we are all being held tightly by a deep love and that in a mysterious but very real way Heiko’s short life was a gift that I (we) are still receiving.
To life, Kate, to life!
Sweet Impossible Blossom 