Monday morning cup of thoughts
There but for the Grace of God go I
It's been raining for hours in the foothills of California. It's something to celebrate in so many ways as it nourishes our extremely parched plants/trees but also helps wash away the sorrows of those struggling.
I recently mentioned my new friend, Kathy, who I will be writing about in the coming weeks. Her son passed away earlier this year. She has been on my mind this holiday season.
My readers might remember I posted Mel Ellison's piece a month ago about celebrating birthdays as we age. He's written yet another beautiful essay about loss/hope that I wanted to share for Kathy, but indeed for everyone.
It's impossible to move through life without experiencing loss. It's a life-long club we are indoctrinated into at birth, which is why I think the phrase "there but for the grace of God go I" is so compelling. It's a gentle reminder to be mindful and grateful, to tuck away the beauty we experience along the way, accepting and understanding that we will need it at some point to heal.
Here are Mel’s words. Thank you, Mel, for letting me share them.
Beauty……and a mother’s unfathomable loss.
Lynn and I backed “Mystique” out of her slip in Sausalito, sailed her down Raccoon Strait and on to the Berkeley Marina where I had agreed to meet a mom who had recently and most tragically lost her son. The plan was to to take her, and a few of her son’s closest friends just outside the Golden Gate Bridge where she was to consign her son’s ashes to the icy cold depths of the Pacific Ocean.
It’s often said that there is no grief on this green earth greater than the grief of a mother who has lost a child….and that only a mother can truly know the profound depth of this loss. But on this clear, cold day in February, I did come to a much deeper understanding of the dark, bottomless abyss of that singular sorrow and heartache.
When all were safely aboard, we untied “Mystique”, motored out past the Berkeley breakwater, raised her sails, and set a westerly course towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bay was a sparkling, deep cobalt blue, reflecting the spectacular blue of the skies above, which were randomly dotted here and there with puffy, white cumulus clouds edged with hints of gray.
With our cargo in a cardboard container and awaiting its imminent final dispersal, the conversation was understandably spare, with occasional and somewhat strained and stilted attempts at lightness…while the heaviness and finality of what had brought us all here, and what we were about to do, hung heavily over “Mystique” like a dark, suffocating shroud.
As we sailed towards the Golden Gate Bridge, we learned that her young adult son had recently been admitted to the hospital for what was supposed to be a routine surgery (is there such a thing as “routine” surgery?)….and sadly never made it off the operating table alive.
Out past the Golden Gate Bridge, I pulled the sails and we began to bob and drift with the tide and currents. A few quiet words were spoken….and then the ashes were scattered and swallowed up by the waiting waters. After, we all sat in a solemn, almost stunned silence, each of us deep in our own thoughts, with the gentle lapping of the water against the hull the only sound breaking the stillness.
All of a sudden, the surface of the waters around us seem to erupt, shattering the silence as six or seven gray dolphins broke the surface and began to frolic, leap and dive, spraying and splattering water playfully all around us. It immediately pulled us out of our private inner reveries. Quickly glancing at each other, we all broke out in smiles at this unexpected but most welcome delight. What a beautiful moment the universe had just provided us! And at just the right moment too, when it could hardly be more needed and appreciated. Suddenly the air seemed clearer, the sunlight a little brighter, and the sadness that had just moments before hung like a grim, gauze veil over “Mystique”, lifted and dissipated into the ether. We could breathe again.
Later, after dropping our guests back in Berkeley, and returning “Mystique” to her slip in Sausalito, Lynn drove us back across the Golden Gate Bridge (she drives the cars, I skipper the sailboats!) . As we made are way through the Presidio, past Lincoln Park and the Legion of Honor, by the Cliff House, out the Great Highway, and home, I thought about the events of the day and said to Lynn it reminded me of a scene from the movie “American Beauty”. It’s where Ricky is talking to Jane about a day in his life, and his words seemed to capture most eloquently our day as well.
“It was the day I realized there is an entire life behind things, and that there is this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know that there was no reason to be afraid……ever.”, says Ricky.
He went on,
“When you see something amazing like that, it’s like God is looking right at you, just for a second…..and if you’re careful, you can look right back.”.
Jane ponders his words for a moment, then slowly turns her eyes towards him and asks,
“And what do you see?”.
Ricky, gazing off into the distance, bites his lip pensively, then answers gently:
“Beauty”
Beautiful!!!
Simply beautiful. Thank you.