Seems I Have Heard This Song Before

Seems I Have Heard This Song Before

Recently I revisited that alone feeling. I miss the life (or at least parts of it) that I used to live.

None of what I used to like that I lived is there anymore.

My body is aging. I don't see my mother anymore when I look in the mirror, I see my grandmother in her last years.

My past loves are gone and with them the passions I shared with them great and small, positive and negative have gone with them but they left their imprint and that imprint flares up now and then.

I try to face forward and catch glimpses of things to live for. I find just enough to keep me going but at some moments, not enough to give me a lot of hope.

I can't get back what is gone but I have to learn to embrace what is.

It's not always like this for those of us who have lost loved ones and the life we had with them; but there are just enough times like this to slap us in the face with reality.

People and the lives we had with them are sometimes good to lose.

Some losses are about things that didn’t go well or didn’t work out. Some are about regrets over things we think we should have done and didn’t. Some are about the choices we made and the consequences that followed those choices.

What we do with these moments of loss is up to us. If all we can do is put one foot in front of the other and trudge through the swamp then we have done well towards getting out of that swamp.

Like an old refrain it may come back again. It would be great to be able to say, “Welcome old friend. Come sit a spell but you can’t stay long because I have other things to do.”

IF THE SHOE FITS...

I spent more than a year trying to wear a shoe that didn't fit. I really wanted it to. I longed for a new relationship with a very special man. I got a very special man but the relationship part didn't work out like he or I hoped it would.

A shoe may look wonderful and you think your foot will fit in it beautifully but you don't know for sure until you try it on and walk around in it for a while.

I felt the pinches but thought the shoe would eventually stretch a bit and feel just fine. I think he hoped so too. I got a blister now and then but figured a little salve and a Band-Aid would fix it up. When it was uncomfortable I kept noting how "pretty" the shoe was and tried to make my feet fit.

Finally I had to admit that the discomfort would most likely continue no matter what I did or my partner did. I couldn't make my foot fit and he wouldn't ask me to because he is a wonderful man.

I still love that shoe, the idea of it at least but there comes a time when one has to take the shoe off and let go of trying to make it fit. That's what I keep telling myself.

NOT MISSING A BEAT

I am still pondering and being amazed at the way that I am grieving this time. My life seems to be going on filled with love and a zest for life.This is so contrary to how things normally go for us humans when we lose someone we love.

I keep asking, "How can this be?" What comes back is many different possibilities or combinations thereof.

How can I explain the love I carry around inside of me that keeps me from hitting the ground?

It seems I haven't missed a beat and I keep dancing to my life's tune. Perhaps it is because I dance to a different tune and my music comes from the Source of all. It is not of my doing. I have only to hear the music and abandon myself to the dance.

Dance with me

Moving On For the Third Time

OUR DOG "SCOOTER ELLIOTT"

August 8, 2007 my significant other, my boyfriend, my love, passed. His love gave me such a feeling of love and contentment that it continues to sustain me even after his passing. I know no greater tribute to a person's life that when he or she passes on, those left behind realize what a gift he or she was. To have left your mark of love on this plane so that it carries forth as long as others remember, must surely be a blessing to everyone.

Ron Schoop like many of us may have taken some wrong turns now and then but in the end he found God/Love and shared that unselfishly and that to me is what counts.

We thought of getting a dog one time before he got sick and now I have gotten a little Yorkie and I feel as though he is not just my dog but "our" dog.

Mama Mia Here I Go Again

I met a man a while back. This year we chanced to come together. He was single and so was I. We found we enjoyed a lot of the same things and before we knew what happened we became significant to each other.

He had a heart condition but we both figured we could work with that and still have a relationship. As it turned out, he was diagnosed with a very serious and aggressive cancer in June. He is "writing the last pages of his life" right now and I am in vigil once again with a man I love as he deals with cancer in which there is no hope.

I can look at my life and ask why I have loved three men, two died of cancer and it appears the same thing is happening to the third one. I find there can be many reasons or none at all. The only thing I can do is to find the blessings in these incidences. Each relationship brought me challenges and joys. Each gave me experiences that were good for my soul in some form or another. How can I regret any of these?

But I have to say that the level of maturity both in the human sense and spiritual sense that I have reached and my third love has also reached enabled us to experience a coming together, a union, that I cannot begin to describe adequately. It surprised and delighted both of us. Neither of us had ever experienced anything like it before. What a beautiful blessing this union has been as short lived as it appears it will be. We don't need a marriage document or ceremony. We were not interested in getting married in the legal sense at all. We felt our souls were united and that is all that counts. We have had no need of "legalizing" our union. We understand more clearly the meaning of "Those whom God has united..."

Loving is our priority. There are no conditions to fill in order for either of us to stay "in love". We are devoted to one another in sickness and in health. It is my joy to take care of him even though it is not an easy job and it is one that leaves me exhausted at times.

As Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.

THE VEIL

I see each of you behind the veil that would wall
Not clearly but I know you are there
Your world and mine so similar and yet not
Light years away yet close as the breath

You are part of me and I of you then and now
When we danced life through us
My story and yours woven so tightly
Yet I saw one way and you another

You see clearly now while my eyes see through mist
Ever straining to connect the dots
It is not mine to have all the answers
Nor is it yours to give them all

We disposed of your bodies as your spirit went free
The next generation will do as much to mine
And I will see what you see on the other side of the veil
While they ponder my presence in the dance with them

Fade Out

Like a photograph that is very old the life I had before continues to fade a bit with time. The essence is still there. The feelings are there. The memories are there. The faces are still visible but time has stood still there while I move on.

With love and fondness I can hold a photograph close to my heart and now and again tears may fall or the corners of my mouth may curl in a smile.

I can always go back there and visit but I can't stay there for I am still moving forward reaching for the next breath and the next adventure while the memory is frozen in time. The next photographs are forming and then later they too will be remembered and enjoyed. Nothing stays the same and every thing is transient.

We can never go back except in our minds and memories. But we can go forward and begin to create more memories.

No one claims it is easy but it is doable.

Brenda Elliott December 18, 2006 On our wedding anniversary.