Sweet Jesus
put your hands acoss this fragile sparrow,
dancing against the wind
seeking
she is waiting for the storm
to end ...
Only you
these torn wings can mend
For where I've flown
it will take eternity
with you to spend
Then,
pain will end.
~ Christine
This poem was one of many found in journals of a woman in my AA community after she died last week. This one was featured on the program for her memorial service held today.
I was with 11 other members of our regular Tuesday night meeting to support her boyfriend, also a member of our group. He looked both stunned and shattered today, drop-kicked into Reality amid all of the photos of his Love, ranging from being a little girl until recently, including a special display with pictures of she and him. Those were the pictures that went straight to my heart and ripped it wide open. Especially one photo which captured them, lips touching, in a tender kiss.
There is no mistake that my healing Teleclass today would have included a discussion about our relationship to Life and Death. My heart is the chamber where profound joy and deep sorrow are nested opposites. I felt both emotions today as I took in the photos and experienced the elation I have about my own significant relationship and, simultaneously, the anguish of feeling the insurmountable sadness that would accompany experiencing her death. Many of us could not imagine being in our friend's shoes and we also related to the surrealness and realness that he was trying to juggle today.
Christine's cousin and her minister offered celebratory comments in honor of her life. The way she touched people. And how she loved Jesus and God. They also spoke frankly yet kindly about her struggles with mental illness and addiction and the courage she had to face each head on and seek help. The most moving part of the service was when her cousin relayed to us the conversation she had with Christine the night before she died. Christine spoke about the physical and mental pain she was in and how weary it had made her. She told her cousin that whenever it's her time to go, she wants her hand extended so that Jesus can take her -- peacefully. This is EXACTLY how she died and how she was found that next morning ... her arm extended across the bed.
The reality of death brings us, if we are open, to meet our own mortality and the preciousness of our life. It has a bittersweet taste and it makes my heart swell. I want to stroke those torn wings and let those tears gently fall as I hold the fragile sparrow that I am.
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