Hi.
You may be wondering how I’m doing, and the answer is complex, but the overall valence is extremely positive…buoyant, warm, joy-filled, and at peace.
It’s Christmas Day, December 25th, 2020. I suppose if I were to start this as I started the last communication with you, I would begin…
Day 10.
The tenth day after the night I provided my Mom a bridge of sorts to transition to wherever is next. Again, she believed there was a next, a very specific and comforting next, so I will sit in that comfort even though my agnostic brain remains skeptical.
If I allow myself the full suspension of disbelief, because ultimately I truly don’t know and I do love a good tale of redemption, then Mom will have been guided through a long, long tunnel, at the end of which exists an unimaginably warm and welcoming light. And there would be all of the angels who she knew in life, those who transitioned before her.
First? Her Mother, Lil. My Nan.
Then, her Father, Jake. Pappy.
Also, her best and longest friend, Loretta, who she endearingly called, “Rett.”
And other friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances now gone from here. So many people Josie loved and who loved Josie, and I am not lying when I tell you she loved unconditionally and her fount was bottomless AND overflowing. Anyone caught up in Josie’s Josie-ness walked away perhaps a bit dazed but certainly feeling heard and loved. So many people. Oh, and choirs of angels. A vast collection of a cappella gospel choirs ushering her in with something like The Hallelujah Chorus, or Amazing Grace, or Oh Shenandoah, or all of them and more.
I’m telling you it was a grand entrance and a welcome befitting a new angel who loved humanity unconditionally but persevered decades of family trauma. She never got back what she provided reflexively. Never. That makes me very sad, so I will sit with the comforting thought of heaven welcoming her like the goddam Queen she was.
See, although covid took her in well under a month, I sit here with joy and existential buoyancy. How can that be? Josie lived her life out loud and she brought such joy, laughter, and love to everyone and anyone. She was the life of the party…outwardly. But inside? I believe she was desperate to balance tenuous and toxic things and people…and so her energy was always boisterous and loud. And the desperation poked through often. How could it not? Keep ‘em laughing.
In my mind, right now, Smokey is singing:
Now there’s some sad things known to man
But ain’t too much sadder than the tears of a clown
When there’s no one around
Josie found respite from decades of balancing the unbalanceable. Truly, I see only the blessing in this. For her. And now, for me. I have the opportunity to continue become the person I’ve always been becoming, but now without fear and without doubt.
That was always her gift to me. Just, she reveled in me. She supported me, unconditionally. She allowed me to be…who I was. She was the only one who always loved me. All of me. The only one who supported every unexpected and non-standardized decision.
Now Kahlil Gibran is in my mind:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
As living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And He bends you with His might
That His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So He loves also the bow that is stable.
That was my Mom. The stable bow. My stable bow.
And now she is free. To sleep in heavenly peace. Knowing that THIS arrow is flying confidently and ALSO…disentangled from all of the family dysfunction, unresolved traumas, and toxicity that dimmed her light in her recent years. She was worn out. She was done. She could no longer balance the unbalanceable. And she knew, because I told her, that I would be very much okay. That she should let go and walk into the light. And she did.
So, really, I’m doing well…sitting here with music in my head that she and I loved, watching the snow fall through a window, my spouse and child nearby and a menagerie of perfectly imperfect pets.
(Serendipity…or whatever…Eddie Kendricks just sang this line to me as I edited the above paragraph, “…a cozy…little home…out in the country…,” and I know Josie would be crying right now. She wouldn’t call it serendipity. She would call it a message from God or Nanny or some angel. She would squeeze my cheeks and tell me, “I love you so much, Gregory,” and I would tell her, “I know. I love you, too,” and she would say, “I know,” but ultimately she knew that the love she had for me was an impenetrable mountain taller than Everest and vaster than the known universe.)
And you. I have you.
I have received every thought, every expression of love, all of the support concentrated on me and my Mom. We received it, and it kept me afloat…allowed me to process so much, gave me access to so many insights, and wrapped me in a warm coat of love.
You matter. To me. Thank you.
I love you.
-G
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