I wonder if this is as good as it is ever going to get....
After two years, nearly 5 months and so many moments without her, I am still learning to adapt to this alternate, rather lonely reality without my mother. I don't like it.
I know. I have choices. I can choose to wallow in my melancholy or suck it up and make the most of this precious life she gave me. Honestly, every day I do a bit of both.
I found this poem (or maybe it found me). It speaks of loss in a voice I understand, and gives me hope for my journey to peace.
When Great Trees Fall
Maya Angelou
When
great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in
tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into
silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare,
sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful
clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind
words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of
us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink,
wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall
away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable
ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and
always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric
vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to
us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be.
Be and be better.
For
they existed.
Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be.
Be and be better.
For they existed.
