Shattering into Wholeness

Over and over again, as I process the waves of my son’s death, my heart shatters wide open. A gaping hole looms and I fill it with compassion, for myself, for my children, for my son. For the world. And as I look at others in line at the grocery store, or in the library, or the grouchy woman behind the counter, I wonder what has shattered them. When I learned of my Mother's terrifying past, how her husband raped her and played Russian roulette with her, how her father beat his children with cast iron skillets, and I know why she has been so fractured. Why she was the way she was when we were growing up. How she had become who she was. And I see her in a new light. And I see that truly, she is a hero. We are all hero’s. We have all moved through some form of tragedy and come out on the other side a new being. Stronger, wiser, and knowing now how this world truly works. We come whole, we shatter, we break, we survive, we adopt a new persona, a new truth, a new name, we shatter, we break through the illusion of the void. We come into wholeness through this shattering as we find our hearts strength once again, it’s miraculous essence of life and love continues on. We find our greater purpose in these tragedies, we move into this new pathway of love once again. We teach, we empathize, we love more deeply than ever. Life is not a half lived promise, but a whole fiesta board. All lessons in one go it seems for some. There is no time to spread them out amid many. I watch the plums ripen on the tree out the window in front of my desk, and I have learned to love this tree over time, watching the flowers come through, then die, then the fruit comes to nourish others. I think this is the way. I follow nature to find my peace in it all. My surrender to the flow of life and death, and I choose to share kindness even more so now that I have known my own pain. It has been the most precious teacher of love. I love my children even more now that one of them has left me so early. I understand precious to a whole new level. I understand pain in others now. When I worked in the hospital I got in trouble often as the patients always wanted to tell their story as to why they were there. What had led up to it. That was what mattered. And I knew it, and I couldn’t rush them through as I was asked to. I took that knowing with me. The pain was the cure. To it all. For there we find the sweetness of the nectar of life. Of love. And we thrill in it all. I took that with me everywhere and I spread it along like the jam of love. The sticky sweetness that covers the wounds and brings a smile to the heart. Brings the joy to the eyes. Brings the life to the lips. I find that now in my own shattering, I become more whole each time I allow myself to shatter apart. To find the gold in the depths of it all, and I pour the golden nectar of love on all of the cracks, on all of the gouges and the tears. I spread it and smooth it and love it all so dearly. I cherish it. As much as I cherish life. For it is what has truly given me life after all.

Another 14 minute write from writing class 🙏

Writing with Laura, Story Revolution

❤️‍🔥

Painting by Tamara Stoneman Artist