Faithless love...

Hidden in the deepest corner of my soul is a fear that when I die I will be afraid. I will cringe and fight and writhe in agony…I think not and yet who will know, not me until I get there. Dying is a dirty word although I am obsessed with it. The processes, the lack of ritual, the fear and repulsion and the scary potential of maybe fighting it in an ungraceful way, I know we will never know till it’s time. I heard about a young girl who died last week in a car accident she left a party at 4:00 am was on the phone with her father and moments later hit a tree and was (hopefully) dead instantly. Jammed underneath her dash board the car wedged into a tree. Crazy how fast it can happen. Reading online about a mother who blogged online about her life as a mother. She whose son just died of an overdose who now is experiencing all that we do experience when our children pass as well as the load of guilt and anger from her online community and the love and support as well, a gigantic bunch of feelings, deep, scary big stuff. We all do the best we can. It’s not possible to imagine what these parents or any parents the world over go through when their children predecease them. Recently I found myself having lunch with a friend who is in pain around a failed (his words) relationship, which I think was quite successful and vibrant and may have run its course. Funny how that can and does happen we just are finished. Anyway I felt something about him and I shared it and it resonates for me as well. We lose faith we forget that we have little to do with what is and that the only thing we can control is our response to life. That is all yet we fancy we are capable of controlling life but it’s not true. If it were true our babies would not die before us. So if God is omnipotent, omniscient, supreme and loving then it’s a good thing we are carried (if we allow it) and that it’s perfection. Tough when you are burying your child, I cannot imagine and I pray never to have to have that experience although my son is fragile (two ventricular peritoneal shunts) I could get the call. Nonetheless and in spite of all of that we still have to have faith if we want to have a life that is tender and effortless, and yet it’s a tall order especially when we are wealthy, intelligent and used to getting our way. I am certain life is good and we are blessed and that everything is perfect. I am certain I forget this and I look forward to the daily , moment by moment rediscovery that we are safe in the big and little existential way only don’t tell me this when I am writhing in agony. You might get hurt.