On Loss

I had a dream that morning...about my grandfather.  I never dream about him.  It was odd.


He wasn't himself, though.  He was this great big block of something else. But we all knew it was him.  I felt him in that cinder block.  Suddenly, I felt a gust of wind pull me towards the rock.  I could feel my family nearby - on the periphery, supporting everything I was experiencing.  My father, the solid structure in everything was watching me closely as I slowly pieced together what the wind symbolized.  Suddenly, an arrow of grief shot through my heart as I thought about death.  My thoughts turned to my mother.  No....I thought...it can't be...


I woke up with a blanket of peace covering my body.  Today was IT - the day I had been thinking about and planning for the last two months.  Every musician was booked; volunteers would arrive on time; work would flow as it should immediately following the volunteer hours; my speeches were ready; I'd say perhaps not the perfect thing, but all of the right things. I was loved. I was in the right place. I was going to take the world by storm...

I had a text message.  I shared my positive feelings of love in my response.  It was reciprocated with sadness...

In those few words, I knew.

I called my parents. There was no answer. I texted my mom, seeing if she could chat. The text came in to let me know. My mom called to let me know the details.

After three years of fighting (the ugliest word to ever be used in our culture), my aunt had passed on.

Many people expected me not to carry on with the day's events.  And perhaps I shouldn't have.  I was definitely unable to do the job I wanted to.  My energy levels were extremely low, and my mind continued to race in a foggy cloud as people arrived needing direction.  I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to curl into a ball and be left alone.

Instead, I hid when I could, thanked everyone who was there to help us out, told my friends why I wasn't my smiling self, received hugs from the family of support I had created in my life, and began to fear that I wasn't yet strong enough to support the family I was blessed to have been born into...

Of the five family deaths I have been witness to, this is the third that is a result of a long drawn-out battle.  Only one of those five deaths happened in less than a day of a battle to survive.  I don't know that any of the options are any better or any worse than the other.  After a long battle, though, I know that my aunt did everything she knew how to in order to survive...and then she decided to enjoy what life she had left.

After a battle to survive, death is a relief.  The family has been caring for her, worrying about her health, cherishing each moment, and keeping one another constantly updated about her health.  Everybody has been dealing with the realizations of her health in their own way.  And that is all that can ever be expected, and respected.

My reaction has been to throw myself headlong into not finding a cure to that (ugliest word to ever be used in our culture), but a way of preventing this pain to happen to anybody...

Last October, I first watched Food Matters.  My reaction to it was amazing.  "Let food by thy medicine..." And my explanation of its message does not do it justice.  Instead, I have learned to have other people watch the film.  This week, you can do just that for free on their website: www.foodmatters.tv . David Wolf's presence alone inspired me to carry on with increasing my knowledge about how food can be our medicine, rather than the fuel for our disease.  Two days after watching that movie, I heard that my aunt's cancer had move into her brain.

I remember that moment exactly.  I was picking up my last...never mind, it's over. That world of understanding no longer exists for me.  And rage engulfs my body when I think of the millions of people - especially any more of my loved ones - still existing in that world of understanding.  Where man-made chemicals cure you; the natural world can be controlled; and if there's something wrong, it has to be righted. I wish I could say that life outside that world is better...but it's all still filled with suffering...

As I write this, I am going through the stage of realization that she is actually gone.  As I prepare to see my family (a time I love and have anxiety for at the same time), I keep coming to terms with the fact that my aunt will not be there.  Her smiling face will not greet me at her door.  Her perfume will not engulf me when she gives me the warmest hug I've ever had somebody give to me.  I won't hear her voice quietly commenting on somebody else's story, or sharing it's own (she had one of the quieter voices in her family, and everybody stopped to listen when she began to speak, so that we all heard her fine, calm words).  Although I've been expecting this day for far too long, it is finally here...and she is not...and that is a sad realization to come to.