Empathy's Gift

Cracked Grace

Holding the Hand of Those Who Mourn

The Gift of Empathy
Empathy Is When Hearts Touch

My friend’s son died two years ago today. I could say, “I know how she feels,” but I don’t know how she feels. However, I get it. I get child death, having lived through (and sort of past) the gut-searing grief she and her husband now experience. Her son came into the world in 1986, only a few months before my child left it.

But I didn’t lose her child—her son—so, no, I don’t presume to know how she feels. All I know is that she is grieving. And I know my heart aches for her because I’m aware of how that hole in the heart feels—that hole that can never be filled, two years later, five years later, twenty-seven years later.

I want to tell her that in spite of the hole that can never be filled, the time will come that the gut-searing ache she feels from this loss won’t hurt so bad. I want to tell her that the moments in which you feel you cannot breathe become fewer. I want to tell her that the moments when you want to run with no destination, only to run, from this reality, this loss, become fewer.

I want to reassure her that love doesn’t change; love remains. The loss also doesn’t change, but peace and comfort come more often as if on wings of white doves.

I pray those doves bless her with their presence today and every day.

How to Hold the Hand of Those Who Mourn: It’s often difficult to know what to say to someone who is grieving. Saying nothing creates a void that crushes. Saying the wrong thing creates more brokenness in a heart that already is beyond hurt. Don't say: "I know how you feel." You don't. Instead, say: “I love you.” “How can I help?” Acknowledge the hurt, the pain, and through examples of love, compassion, and empathy reassure those who are experiencing loss that they are loved and they are not alone.

Cracked Grace: Anticipation

Cracked Grace

Anticipation

Anticipation.

Memory awakes from its slumber as I ponder Christmas Eves past . . .

My final peek at the tree at the bottom of the stairs

Before I made a weary climb to blessed rest.

Anticipation.

It’s missing this Christmas Eve

With no small children underfoot

Bursting with anticipation

Wondering what they’d find beneath that tree

After their busy morning feet raced downstairs.

Anticipation.

Wistful, longing, wanting what’s not here.

In doing so, I forget that

I create anticipation.

I can make my own this quiet Christmas Eve.

Anticipation.

Bread baking later today

Its scent wafting from the kitchen and through the house.

Waking tomorrow morning, knowing my family is safe.

Telephone calls, merry laughs.

Sharing food and baby laughter later in the day.

Anticipation.

What can I create to bring the joy of

Anticipation to this Christmas Eve

And every eve?

Solstice Light, Longest Night

Cracked Grace

Solstice Light

I peer into the semi-darkness.

Fog rises in a wispy cloud as

Moisture leaves the surface of the Earth

And makes way for the sun’s light

Little though it will be

On this shortest light, longest night, winter solstice day.

Sick

Cracked Grace

Sick

My friend is sick.

Really sick—as in cancer sick and in the hospital sick.

I wish I had a mountain of editing and proofreading on my desk today. I don’t.

If I did, I wouldn’t sit here festering, worrying, close to tears.

I have a to-do list, as I do most days.

It’s hard to follow it as I ponder away at life and other mysteries

And ask questions that have no answers, not a one.

Instead of asking

Perhaps I can try to step through this day with grace,

This Cracked Grace

And let my day be a walking prayer for wholeness

Whatever form that may take.

Compassion's Challenge

Cracked Grace

Compassion’s Challenge

Compassion is my challenge today.

I find it difficult to have compassion

For those who appear to have none

In their righteous indignation

And moral superiority.

Compassion means I look past

That indignation, moral ego, and judgment.

Instead, I see the heart that aches,

The wounds that aren’t healed.

Compassion brings me to the hearts of each of us

Broken, yearning, seeking.

With compassion,

I pave a path for all to walk with grace.

Got Swiss Cheese Holes in Your Heart?

Cracked Grace

Swiss Cheese Holes in My Heart

“Plants,” they said.

“Fill your home with plants to clean the air.”

Aching to cure our child’s cancer,

We followed a strict diet regimen, changed our lifestyles,

And filled our home with plants.

No cure. Not with diets, plants, lifestyle changes

And surgery, radiation, and chemo.

I bought a Swiss Cheese Philodendron

At that time.

When I see it growing healthy and green,

I’m sometimes reminded of loss, of sorrow,

Of the Swiss Cheese Holes in my heart

Since the death of my child.

Other times, I’m reminded that throughout these years of loss,

I’ve begun to thrive in other ways I never imagined,

Sharing with others and holding them up when they, too,

Have Swiss Cheese Holes in their hearts.

I’m also reminded that I love Swiss Cheese

And that even in the worst of times,

I can make a sandwich from those

Swiss Cheese Holes in my heart.

Life Beyond the Petals' Violet Hues Cannot Be Ignored

View from Inside the Orchid

A World Within Shows the Way

To Worlds Beyond

It’s well-lit inside the orchid. I have an extraordinary view from where I’m perched deep inside this bloom, the petals just beginning to to unfurl, to show me more of the outside world from where I sit. Below me and on both sides of me are cream-colored layers. Green hues move from the palest hint to brighter and brighter, and then they morph into the regal violet petals that are ready to embrace the outside world. I am comfortable, warm, serene.

I gaze up at the greens and violets and feel my psyche tugged toward those outer petals, but for now, I’m content to sit in the creamy inner world of this orchid, where the down-cushioned bloom wraps around me. Ah, but the greens draw my eyes to them, and from there, my eyes continue to travel farther away from this plush center. The regal violet petals strike my senses awake, firing them with energy, with life. I know, because I have viewed these petals from the outside, that when held to the light, they shimmer like gems or Rapunzel’s straw once spun into gold. If I leave this world deep within and move closer to those gems, I’ll catch their sparkle on my skin and I, too, will shimmer.

Oh, I yearn to meander up and out of this orchid and onto those petals. The light that beckons me is different above the violet petals. This interior world has its own rich creams and emerald greens, but as I gaze up and out, the light beyond the violet petals is not finite. It isn’t enclosed within the body of this precious bloom. That light moves and spreads and hints of the promise of more worlds, rather than the singular world I now experience within the orchid—lovely as it is.

 This orchid bloom’s inner world is delicate, yet finite in its enclosure. I’m aware of the bloom’s capacity for continued life because flecks of pollen dust my hair, but the life within this bloom also is limited—finite—as is the light.

Fragility of the petals and the blossom’s delicate construction mean a journey up and out of this world must be done with care. Comforting and serene as it is within this world, the light and worlds above these violet hues cannot, will not, be ignored. The life beyond this creamy comfort calls.

In Our Eyes . . . Wonder and Delight—Outside

Cracked Grace

 Life’s Wonder Awaits . . .

Outside

Outside.

The wonder and delight of the world

Await.

View the Earth with fresh eyes.

Gaze through an open window.

Explore life

With the eyes of a child.

Outside.

You Can't Think About Anything Else

Cracked Grace

Standing in the Now

“When you’re trying to hold yourself up,

you can’t think about anything else.”
On balance poses (and life)—Katryn Miller,Yoga Teacher, Groton, MA

Being off-balance is scary. We’re afraid of falling. In life, when it’s difficult to find balance, to hold ourselves up, it is important that we not think about anything else except achieving and holding that balance.

When standing in a yoga pose, one leg raised, one foot on the ground, if I think about what I’m doing, I teeter to the right, then to the left—my thoughts unbalance me and I begin to fall.

When holding myself up in life, if I think about what I’m doing, I teeter to the right, then to the left—my thoughts unbalance me and I begin to fall.

“When you’re trying to hold yourself up,

you can’t think about anything else.”

Tree Pose

Counting Breaths . . .

Cracked Grace

This Babe Sleeping

This babe sleeping

Flesh of my flesh

Once removed.

An unbroken thread of connection winds from my body, my blood,

To my daughter and then to her sleeping child.

I study her breaths

My eyes intent on the rise and fall of her chest.

I give sweet surrender to this moment

And savor this babe asleep.