Beyond Words

Beyond words is the place of deep feeling which rises up, it has no definite edge or shape cannot be located in time but floods me at times, on days like today when I am not quiet fully conscious of the depth of sadness and aloneness I sometimes feel.  More lonely with others after spending tine when we did not really touch base with anything of deeper meaning, my feelings had to be put aside as there was no space for them to express and still it was good to spend time just in nature and I felt sad too when we said goodbye.  So many contradictory feelings.

At present I am more at home when spending time alone, when I can touch base with my feelings and with the sadness. The truth is this time of year is fraught with dark associations.  I lost my eldest sister in the early hours of another Easter Sunday two years ago.  Last year my mother was hospitalised after a falling down stairs trying to get clothes to take to another sister who had fallen and was now back in the psyche ward following her fifth hospitalisation in as many years.  I was alone and grieving, no one to call and say “how are you feeling?”.  No place to go with the sadness which it seemed it was my burden at times to carry alone.

Today when we visited the desert garden at the Botanical Garden I was triggered back to that nightmare trip we took into the Australian outback where each day was a quest for you to prove something, that had no meaning for me and yet I followed in desperation, wanting to be with you, not to be alone but finding myself lonelier than ever.

I had not yet learned the lesson that it was up to me to nurture my own soul.  To be the parent to myself.  To comfort myself in stillness.  To wrap a blanket of caring around my tender, bruised and aching heart.  So much wreckage. So few happy memories to draw on.  I am returned to this quiet house, to the snoring dog my closest companion.  I must seek comfort here today.  I am grateful for the cuddle that my dog allows, for this quiet gift of being in each other’s presence.

There is a huge black void that has opened up today.  I felt worse for seeing my mother and sister yesterday.  It reminded me I am on the outside of that trio and will always be.  The price of trying to belong has been too high.  I feel the connection to my Mum that I have had at times in the past having been stolen.  I feel the wounded part of her I am carrying and how the journey we have lived on ancestrally and collectively has only led to further distance and separation.

There seems no way to bridge this gulf and so I must seek comfort from within for it seems to be that is the only place it can be found and may even require of me this afternoon some  hours spend being with the emptiness, knowing I am powerless over it at present.

There is this ocean of sadness as I remember my dead sister’s last hours on this earth.  Not being able to say goodbye to person who was conscious.  Knowing that this time she would not be returning to consciousness and earthly relationship ever again.  And yet our love goes on.  I know she is free now but still I miss her and that wound is sore and active today and it is right and natural to feel sad.