A loss like no other

 We lost a dear friend. 

I hadn't seen her in months, but knew if I had walked into a room where she was, she would have greeted me with the warmest smile imaginable. She would have inquired as to my life, and shrugged off her own many miles and many people she'd been around and affected.

I just saw the right poem for this loss.

When Great Trees Fall

by Maya Angelou

When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses,

and even elephants

lumber after safety.

When great trees fall

in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses

eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly,

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

examines,

gnaws on kind words

unsaid,

promised walks

never taken.

Great souls die and

our reality, bound to

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls,

dependent upon their

nurture,

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed

and informed by their

radiance,

fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, cold

caves.

And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly. Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be

better. For they existed.

The pottery studio has set up a little memorial for her in their window.

I also mentioned this dear woman's passing when I first heard about it several weeks ago HERE.

So long Julia

Just a short memorial to a dear friend. When the people at church said they were having a gathering to remember her the day after she died, I thought I might go...but when it came time to get ready I was overcome by coughing fits.

(NOTE: I can't reply to anyone's comments. But I wanted you all to know...Thank you. And I misread when they were having the gathering at church...it's today, right now. But I'm still not going.)

See, Julia also had bronchiectasis, coughing at any time just to be able to breath.

And at the time the gathering was to take place at church, there was a mighty thunderstorm. (though nobody was gathering yesterday after all!)

I figured that Julia's spirit was saying that she's maybe gone in body, but just like a summer storm, she'll be here at times we least expect her, just booming some thunder (which actually is very unlike her.)

Julia was a lady. Always well dressed, and because of her height and thinness, she looked like a model, though in her 70s was believable.

And kind. She offered to help me many times when I was recovering from something or another. She'd gladly drive me places. And I know she helped many other people at church. She had just resigned from a committee that I have just joined. She was continuing to help the Afghan family which has been trying to acclimate to becoming Americans.  Julia always had a smile for everyone, and would speak in her soft voice, slowly but with proper enunciation. I think it was in part due to her problems breathing.

This was her last FaceBook portrait...from over a year ago.

She died suddenly on Tuesday, and nobody knows the cause.

I will definitely look for thunder storms to bring her spirit back to say hello again.

Thank you for all the comments. The problem is with this new ReCaptCha thing google is doing with blogger. It says it's my internet, but it continues and my internet is just fine.

So long, Jinni

May her journey to the summerland be easy, and may her friends and family know peace. 

Last night, not having stayed awake till midnight, I had some emotions churning away that prodded me awake around 2:30 am.  (It could have been the delicious but high fat dinner as well.)

Anyway, I couldn't sleep, and decided to write (journal, not publishable) what was going on.  And eventually I saw what years of therapy would show me.  Would I remember it this time?  I hope so.

(And the heading of DON"T POST THIS didn't work, so it was actually out there, my totally bare psyche for about 20 minutes this morning.  I will not try journalling in that way EVER again.)

After my journaling, I checked my emails, and there was "bad news."
That subject line, especially from the husband of an old friend, made me take a deep breath before opening the email.

She was failing and not expected to live through the night.

Jinni on the left while a teen in 1957

Oh no.  I thought how she had just gotten back in touch on emails, after a month or so of silence.  During that month I knew she and her husband had been moving to get the treatment that they both needed for medical care.  And I knew she wasn't happy about it, since this is a very strong, independent woman.

So I answered Jim's email, saying that if he got a chance to talk with her in her coma, I'd appreciate his giving her my personal message.  I knew he was having a tough time.

I posted my sadness on FaceBook, but since I'd just posted my wishes for a Happy 2014 including a picture, the sad message disappeared from NewsFeed almost immediately.  It doesn't matter.  I will talk with my good friends soon and experience my grief in person.

Then I lay down in bed...suddenly unable to get warm.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't cry.  So I thought of communicating through the other ether, the web of the spiritual connection that we all know of, but seldom try using. I started singing the chant that Jinni and others had sung back in the days when we gathered in circles as women, as pagans.

I sang and sang and sang...the cats immediately came to my side and gave their homage to this goddess woman.  Hours later, and a few tears as well, I turned off the light.

When I woke during the night, it was again tossing and turning, not being able to accept and let go of my friend.  I imagined a version of Pagan heaven, with great images of all the young people having a good time (and I won't give you details, because if you're Pagan you already know them, and if you're not, you have your own images to put there in front of you.)  Everyone had gone back to the prime of their lives, rather than the old or infirm physical states that they left their bodies in.

I thought at one point of how I've been emailing Jinni for the last 13 years, as well as another friend who I knew from the same time in school (high school and early college years).  I thought I could consolidate all her emails and send them to her husband.  Then I remembered that her emotions sometimes weren't that positive towards him...and I wanted to respect that.  But there are plenty of other emails that I could gather together.  What a job that would be.

The things that I remember from those emails were her great stories about her life...and her father who died in WW II.  Jinni could spin a yarn in an excellent way, touching the fiber of your being.  She also had an alter ego of Motorcycle Mama that let loose her wild side.

She spoke of having belonged to circles of like-minded ritual followers.  She spoke of friends she had lost.  And she shared a CD of goddess chants with me.  I'll be digging that out and playing it today when I cast a Tarot spread in her honor, and meditate as I let go, as I see her true being, and send love to her family.

July first sighs

I go to bed at night, alone but with two cats.  I crank up the old computer in the morning (the one that works intermittently) and fix my coffee.  I check my email and my favorite blogs.  Remember I turned off TV coverage about a month ago.

Oh no, first my blog-friend Vicki has had an accident which totaled her car.  All I can do is comment along with other blogger friends our relief that she wasn't hurt too badly.

Then another blog alerts me to a wildfire which has taken the lives of 19 hotshot firefighters.  I quickly go look at news reports.  http://www.today.com/video/today/52362369#52362369
I chose to look at NBC rather than FOX, but what difference does it make in this awful story?  The facts are grim.  I post my sadness on my FaceBook page, sending condolences so their families may know peace.  There are also many people homeless as a result of this fire.  May they find comfort as well.

So this first of July is one of sighs. 

I spent last evening reading about another disaster which occured over a century ago.  My grandparents both lived through it, when about 6000 people were killed in the "Storm of 1900 in Galveston."  I re-read the book that my grandmother gave me, in which she had written, "I knew most of these people."  I scanned the photos and wanted to post them to Ancestry.com so that other relatives could see the devastation...not to gloat in "weren't the survivors lucky."  I want to share it because the event must have impacted the lives of all who lived through it.  I've met people who survived the devastation of Katrina in New Orleans, or Andrew in south Florida.   For many, there is a look in their eyes that is forever sad.

I feel very connected to those who have suffered, not because I have, but because I am touched in my heart.