. . . THAT OUR SONG BEGINS AGAIN?
Adjusting to a daily work schedule, a new work environment, and an entirely new set of applications and procedures left me distracted enough this week that I forgot what day it was. So here I am, for the first time since July, typing my blog on a Thursday when my blog day is actually on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, my deadline for writing, I was discouraged about tasks that I felt buried under; being new and untrained. As I walked to my car at the end of my work day, Dan’s spirit came to me in the visage of a red-orange butterfly. I teared up, thinking he came to offer the encouragement that he so often gave.
“You can do anything!” he used to tell me. It felt like such a gift to see that butterfly; yet now I think his message was much simpler: “Hey, babe, it’s Tuesday.”
My workaround, although it is a different topic than I planned to write, gave inspiration to the question posed in the title: Is it possible that our song will begin again?
A precious book that found me recently has a hopeful message in answer to the question.
A friend of mine once said that she likes to believe that books find us just when we need them. This book came to me by a circuitous route. A friend shared a post by another author who featured a poem in his blog and I recognized the name–Jan Richardson–from a book that found me in Valyermo in the year 2000 in a library housed in a monastery. Jan’s spirit, alive through her words, made her unforgettable to me. So these many years later, I immediately recognized her name on the poem and looked her up to catch up on her life. I found out she married and that four years later her husband died suddenly. Moving to the tab that featured her books I found The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief.
Her book found me and I immediately ordered it.
The blessing on the dedication page let me know that her gift of heart through words stood the test of time:
________________
FOR OUR FAMILY
________________
When the shattering world.
Then your sheltering heart.
When the sorrowing way.
Then your encircling grace.
When the unbearable dark.
Then your comfort, your light.
When the empty, the ache.
Then your welcoming door.
When you.
Then this blessing,
this grateful,
this thanks.
Had I not known she was widowed–had I not known she was widowed after only four short years–I might have guessed her reality from her Table of Contents.
Who writes an entry named Blessing for Getting the News? Or, Blessing the Tools of Grief.
And so it was that this blessing came to me on Thursday. The day after Wednesday. Almost 24 hours after my blog post was due. The hour I found the post I did not know I wanted to share with you.
May it be a blessing for you.
WHERE YOUR SONG BEGINS AGAIN
Beloved,
I could not bear it
if this blessing ended
with the final beat
of your heart,
if it left
with the last breath
that bore you away
from here.
I could not stand
the silence,
the stillness
where all
had once been song,
had been story,
had been the cadenced liturgy
of your life.
So let it be
that this blessing
will abide
in the pulse
that moves us
from this moment
to the next.
Let it be
that you will breathe
in us here bereft
but beloved still.
Let it be
that you will make your home
in the chamber
of our heart
where your story
does not cease,
where your words
take flesh anew,
where your song
begins again.
– Written for her husband Gary’s memorial service
All poems from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief
by Jan Richardson, Wanton Gospeller Press, Orlando, Florida
