Excising Grief: Keep abreast of it

This note today is not about interior design of your home, of space planning for activities or color to enhance your lifestyle. This is about good old grief.

How long do you hold onto it?
How might it affect your personal health?
How can you keep tabs on it in relation to other things in your life?

This February is a big month for me.  No, not the anniversary of the death of my spouse or father or other relative.  No, it is not the fact that I am single again this Valentine's day.
This month I have choices to make that appeared from nowhere. I did not view or consider them on the horizon.  Like the loss of a loved one and am rebounding from the information.


I have been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Not me, my head and heart echoed.  But yes.  Six months ago I was cancer free.  Now my body is working hard to defend itself from an invader.  Grief invades too.   Most of us have felt that invasion of grief into our lives, into our choices and into our dreams.

Metaphysically speaking, the left side of the body is the receiving side or female  Metaphysically speaking the location of the tumors are in a part of the breast aligned with self esteem issues.  Another part of the breast in associated with abandonment issues.  Does this make sense?  Does this even matter?

I have used this as a tool to assess what have I held onto in my grief journey.  Have I diminished my thought of usefullness and importance because my role of wife, mother and daughter has drastically changed?   Have I felt all alone too much of the time and not accepted or received the outreach of others?

What I know it this, I am grieving for a part of my body that I will relinguish, but this time in grief I know the gains.  The gains of compassion are one and maybe this time more compassion for myself!  The gains of unexpected and new personal relationships and the discovery of a new us in all of it erupts from grief as well.

In your grief, where is it carried in your body? Mine was deep in my left breast,  close to my heart.  It is not the reason my body has created these foreign cells , but it calls me to look at grief on a different level.  It is causing me to view how I can support myself and accept support from others.   We are a community of souls working as a whole.  We often forget our relationship to others in grief and feel our function in life lost.


I am thankful that my body gave me this heads up.   I am thankful for health providers that remind us of preventative care.   Grief, it shows up in all forms, but it can provide us  with that gentle reminder of self care.   We have often cared so much for others, it is now our time.

This Valentine's day I will be solo but thankful of what grief brings up, namely opportunities to improve our relationship with ourselves and others.  It is unexpectedly beautiful.  Happy Valentine's Day.

Certainty in Unbelief

My body is fighting against itself
It knows its function
It doesn't know good or bad
It judges not
It does its job, in a timely manner

My body remembers painful memories
that I long ago forgot
It protects me the way it can
burying the pain deep within , far from the surface
It does it job, in a timely manner

My body never ceases
to pump, produce and continually
renew at its optimum level
using what I put into it
Food and food for thought
It does its job, in a timely manner

I thank my body today
For being like my loyal dog
Sheltering me from what I may not see
Defending me when I forget to be prepared

I thank my body today
For raising a red flag
that it knew I would see
and allowing me to find the    courage and love to tag along
on its next course of action

I thank my body today
For showing me the path and growth
need not be black and white
right or wrong

No more fights within or without
I thank my body

For the Man

This is for the man
That sits on the picnic table
Writing so neatly
Exuding such peace

This is for the man
That delicately holds his pen
Perfecting each blackened word
On his lined paper day after day

This is for the man
That lingers for hours
Shifting only slightly
As beach people drag their kayaks and baskets
endlessly beside him


This is for the man
That I imagine is writing his life
his dreams out for his grandchildren
and great grandchildren

This is for the man that picked
this daily writing spot
a sacred place in the sun and shade
for truth to light upon the paper
for hands to set it free
and for memories to fly from mind
to hand

I tried to stop my steps on several days
as I passed you
to ask what you may be writing
to bask in the art of zen-like creativity
and capture for myself the magic in you

I will not say where you write
I hope to come again and see you
This time I will ask to sit with you
Serve you a cup a tea and a smile

If you are not there
May I sit at your spot?
May I sip inward your words
so peacefully carved out upon
this picnic table?

One more question for you
Why does the rough cord bind the legs of
the table?  Does it represent the the tottering of
thoughts?  The resilence of time? The care of others
to preserve words, thoughts and places to sit? Or is
it a special signal for other writers to see, to know
grace and letters fall freely here?

For you,  the man that writes on the beach
on the picnic table
in the sun
You brightened my days there
May that table continue to brighten yours