Journeying with the Pain - Goldie dies

All to often in response to situations of grief it is said "Time will heal!" I also remember this being mentioned to me either in a direct or indirect way. I have also read in Disguised by Grace - How the soul grows through loss that the soul has capacity to grow through loss. Not that this means that the acuteness of the pain ever of loss ever goes away, but there is a capacity within each of us to journey with it. A friend of mine wrote a poem recently that spoke about grief and the persona it has.  Most often it journeys with me unseen. Then at times without any notice or hint, it appears and presents itself with all the fierceness it was. Searing cutting pain which reaches into the depths of your being and does something I do not have the words to describe. This experience is not merely a spiritual or emotional encounter but also very physical. 


About six weeks ago my Dad came to live in Christchurch and brought with him his budgie Goldie. Dad gave Goldie to Francesca to be her bird as he was unable to have Goldie at the rest home the way he would have liked and so he came to live with us. Immediately Francesca and they became the best of friends and they spent time together every day. In short the three of us had become accustomed to having Goldie's company.
This morning when Francesca went to say good morning to Goldie she found him lying dead on the floor of his cage. She was distraught, and I took time to comfort her. I found myself overwhelmed by the loss. What I was acutely aware of is that is was in the house here that I last engaged Elijah when he was alive. The death of Goldie like the opening of a door that my pain and the grief I might journey with to come to visit. Like the surf crashing relentlessly on the foreshore the waves came and overwhelmed me. I hurt, deep down to the core of my being, over and over in my gut in my face in my brain across my whole being a shaking. I felt the urge and still do to a degree to run and hide, to shake it off, to shed it like a skin or shell. Ah but if that were the simple answer. Rather I must face the pain journey through the darkness, press through the waves. As I face this let me share with you a poem written by a friend following the loss of her soulmate Jacky in recent months.


Darren

A poem

Behold my friends for I am grief
Look away if you must
I am not very attractive
however I can promise you will meet me again
I leave no one untouched
When I come you will not mistake me
I twist and contort all that is your reality
I'll make you feel dead in a place deep inside
lower than your heart and not quite in your stomach
I believe you may call it your gut
Your instinctual centre will numb during my stay
I'm the price that you pay for having loved so they say
And pay? Yes you will, in pain.
I will render you joyless
Make you sleepless at night
When the sun rises gloom will greet you each day
Ill make you question all that you know
And Ill drag out my stay to ensure that you are made acutely aware that
You have loved
I will over time allow you to breathe without me however
when you least expect I will appear within you again
Behold my friends for I am grief
Look away if you must
We will meet again one day.

Elijah the Smile bringer

I know I have written before that Elijah's journey continues, but I ever cease to be amazed how he continues to be a people magnet. I like to wear my Elijah T shirt with my favourite picture on it and with his date of birth and death and www.angelmannetwork.com. Today at the rest home that I have moved my Dad to 7 people stopped me and asked about Elijah and Angelman syndrome. One Elderly lady told me i have courageous and brave talking about Elijah. She told me she has a daughter who is 57 who had an interlectual disability, a son who commited suicide and two toher children with the challenges of mental illness, I told her she was brave sharing with me about her life. I'm not quite sure why but often people tell me how awful it must have been tht Elijah died when he was so young, and that somehow their loss is less. As I write this I am speculating in my mind that one of the reasons is that I freely speak about Elijah and the journey and this then often gives other people permission to share their loss and their grief. Not a day goes by when Elijah is not in my conversations with people. I guess I am testimony that it is possible to journey in grief and pain and to embrace it, to journey with it and to share the hope with others. If I'm an inspiration, let it be that others share those times, the grief the loss with others that they can take courage and know that there is hope. On Rare Disease Day recently I did a fundraising campaign at my work and taked about AS and the journey and I wept and share on the phone with a number of people who had recently experienced loss close to them of someone they loved on a 2 year old - with a heart defect an the other a Mum of cancer.

I am a Pilgrim amongst Pilgrims on the Journey
Darren