death’s sting is in my heart and mind and memories

 

When I think of death, and of late

the idea has come with alarming frequency,

I seem at peace with the idea that

a day will dawn when I will no longer be

among those living

in this valley of strange humors.

 

I can accept the idea of my own demise,

but I am unable to accept the death

of anyone else.

 

I find it impossible to let a friend or relative

go into that country of no return.

Disbelief becomes my close companion,

and anger follows in its wake.

 

I answer the heroic question

‘Death, where is thy sting?’ with

‘it is here in my heart and mind and memories.’

 

–Maya Angelou

 

On this day, in 2014, Maya Angelou died. An American poet, she overcame a traumatic childhood, marked by abuse and racism, and found her voice through writing and poetry.

Death was her teacher as well.

In her life, she spoke of the interminable fight for social justice and the importance of holding onto dignity in the face of adversity.

 

Need a dose of dignity?

Yes, please.

 

Dignity in the face of adversity.

 

Adversity comes to us, as it did to Maya, packaged with a capital “A” when disaster surrounds us. Likewise, between the poetic hours of sunrise and sunset, it arrives on the regular with a lower case “a” bringing death by a thousand cuts. Some weeks feel like this.

How full, deep, and wide is the work of grief!

It’s no wonder that we wish to push it away and keep it ever at arm’s length.

The work of grief is the sorting out of all we’re left with when our person leaves; a work that is so unique that no two persons’ grief look alike.

Yet, at times grief will find us reading a poem and saying aloud, “yes, me too,” demonstrating the both/and nature of grieving.

 

The poem reminds me how the death of my person brings me to a deeper awareness of my own demise.

Do I accept that I, too, will pass from this earth?

It speaks for the part of me that feels weary of death, in its many disguises, and the anger and helplessness that accompanies the realization that we will endure this rupture over time again and again; weeks, months, years, and millennia.

 

Is it possible for me to make peace with death?

 

Yes, I believe I can.

 

Each time I capture the present moment and experience something akin to joy.

Every moment in time when I experience the gift of timelessness through the gift of wonder.

Each day that I make the necessary space in life for me to follow my bliss.

 

It is in these moments when the small, still voice of survival shows up, saying . . .

 

Don’t be afraid of the work of grief… its medicine is joy.

 

Keep going . . .