The Ache of Loss

The trees grow more restless;

October wind weaves through them:

they shake their arms in dismay

as if to fight the coming cold

and the grief of leaves going. 

Autumn air does a heart-dance

on branches already gone barren;

the misty air clings to golden leaves,

making the trees bend even lower. 

It is a season to hold the trees close,

to stand with them in their grieving.

It is a time to open my inner being

to the misty truths of my own goodbyes. 

Autumn comes.  It always does.

Goodbye comes. It always does.

The trees struggle with this truth today

and in my deepest of being, so do I.  

Every autumn, nostalgia fills me;

every autumn yearning holds me. 

I cling to the ripeness of summer,

knowing it will be many long months 

before I can catch a breath of lilac,

or the green of freshly mown grass.

And so I begin my fallow vigil,

remembering the truth of all ages:

Unless the wheat seed dies

it cannot sing a new birth.

Unless summer gives in to autumn

springtime will never embrace me. 

The Ache of Autumn in Us 

Joyce Rupp

The poem and the entry have nothing to do with my first autumn experience early this month.  This is the very first Joyce Rupp poem and reflection that I read and somehow the familiar lines of the poem always come by during moments of loss, pain, and transition.  

Early signs of autumn

The remembrance of the feast of souls always brings me face to face not only with my own finiteness but also with some longing for significant others who had passed on.  Time indeed heals all wounds, but the longing for lost loved ones doesn't seem to completely go away.  

Today, I feel a stirring to look at loss and the many ways we experience this in our life.  

Death 

I've lost several people who had and who will always have a special place in my heart. Each loss is painful and unique - as unique as the person lost.  And while many say that time heals all wounds, certain aches will always be there, an emptiness in one's heart, never to be filled again.  But, yes, we move on!  We learn to live life without this significant person.  Every November or birthday or other significant date though the loss of this other becomes more palpable.  The feelings sweep us like a big wave in the sea. Often the invitation is to simply sit still and allow the water to wash us away. . . and then there's a deep stillness within.  

Separations

I can't and won't dare count the number of times I've had to part ways with significant people in my life.  I sometimes wish that we can develop immunity from the pain of goodbyes. Why not?  Don't we get immunity from diseases like chicken pox after catching one? This is wishful thinking, I know.  

I've also toyed with the thought that death is probably easier for the heart because then I know that it's not about me, that the other didn't deliberately choose to leave me, that, had the other been alive, we will still be sharing a life together.  

Then, I wake up. Why does it have to be about me?  Can't goodbyes happen without me blaming myself. . . for possibly not being nice enough, or beautiful enough, or available enough, or accommodating more, or giving more?  

In one of the most painful goodbyes I've had, I found myself writing on my journal about how goodbyes can also be beautiful.  Yes, goodbyes are painful and overwhelming but they don't always have to be burdened with anger and questions about one's self-worth.  In certain goodbyes, there is a promise of a new life evolving in each of the parties involved and in the relationship they share.  It is like the promise of a beautiful flower but only after some form of dying. 

Losing Material Possessions
  
I had always been careful not to tell people suffering from loss of precious material possessions that "you should be grateful you and your loved ones are unharmed."  I am careful not to minimise the pain of the other.  

It was not after yesterday's break-in of the house of my brother and his family that I really understood what it meant to be broken in. . . to have material possessions lost.  I don't exactly know what were inside the safety deposit box that was stolen. I am sure though that those were precious enough - most likely jewelries passed on by my sister-in-law's mother to her or something she and my brother saved up for - to deserve to be stored in a safety deposit box.  

More than the loss of material things, what glared before me was the feeling that they - we - cannot really be safe in this world.  Their house, which was the house built by my parents from hard-earned money was where we spent a significant period of our growing-up years.  It was not the nicest house in the block, but I had always felt safe there.  I always felt that no one would break in and no one did. . . until yesterday.  And so now, with my brother's family, I nurse the pain of the loss of a sense of security in the community with live in, in our own homes.  

I pray that in due time we will all be able to trust this world again, to come to terms with the truth that, while there are bad elements in this world, there is also so much goodness in people.  For now though I will just allow all of us to experience the loss and to be a little bit paranoid once in a while.