Award-winning photo of Morro Rock by Dallis Day Richardson
Blessing for When You Don’t Know Where to Begin
This blessing isn’t sure where to begin. So many steps are just steps in the dark. So much of life is shaped by uncertainty. So many questions litter our paths. Where to begin.
Where to begin in mending one’s shattered heart. Where to begin in creating a life on one’s own. Where to begin in accepting joy when it comes. Where to begin.
Even if there are discernible first steps, then what? At the core of being human the heart beats with a force originating in the earth’s beginnings where fire and water and soil and air collide and explode into wondrous breathtaking life! Is this the place where healing begins – as you immerse yourself in this cosmic life force? If so, where do you learn how to do this?
This blessing sees how often you lose your way as you unsteadily chart a strange new path alone without another soul truly able to guide you. What could anyone possibly say? They would be trying to piece you back together into their vision of wholeness.
This blessing admits defeat when necessary. There is no winning the wrestling match with grief when it approaches with muscles bulging and gaze focused squarely on your weaknesses. It will pin you every time. Every damn time.
Maybe though, just maybe, this is precisely what you need – a sweeping wide-ranging battle to live with the very things you fear most – loneliness, meaninglessness, being forgotten left behind as the world moves on, accepting undeserved joy – as you spar with your muscled opponent who looks surprisingly familiar, like someone you’ve encountered before but haven’t seen in years.
When we fell in love it was a long and lovely fall tumbling heart first into a trust so deep and wide neither of us recognized it at first.
Here where the soul is bare and unashamed and caught off guard by the beauty of another we discovered home for the first time in our lives.
It is not to be taken for granted – this serendipity of finding what we knew our souls needed but had never been able to find – a shelter from the storm, a refuge amid life’s troubles, a sanctuary of healing grace.
Your dying shook the foundations of this home we fashioned out of love and sweat and laughter and tears.
Now many questions travel with me in this liminal territory I’ve entered – where am I to turn for shelter, how will I recover a sense of home, how do I cultivate a circle of trust, how does one pray with a heart bereft, how do I travel this long, lonely road?
Travel with me, sweetheart. Please, I pray, travel with me, as I wait for answers and go in search of them.
Travel with me, sweetheart, and in the traveling hold these questions with me until a new dawn arrives.
Travel with me and be home for me, and in the sweet mystery of love be home with me.
I’m told you’re looking down on me from above, but I don’t believe it. I don’t want you looking down on me from some lofty perch. You never did that in life, so why would you start now? It’s odd to even think about you hovering over me – how high I’m not told – viewing my life as a spectator, watching me move from here to there, seeing me make my mistakes and not being able to prevent them, having little to do with me really, other than to observe my days and pray for the best.
In life, this life, you were always by my side and I felt your deep presence. You were my sanctuary – where love flourished, where healing occurred, where life was restored each day, where hope never died.
On this side of the veil I still look for you in this sacred meeting place where egos fall away and love without conditions abides.
You don’t look down on me from above. You look as you always have, into my eyes, with a tenderness too deep for words. You draw me out and love me, unreservedly, truthfully, and that is a gift that can only be given from the inside.
You who wonder if a time will ever come when contentment comes calling again.
You who limp through most days on legs weary from carrying the heaviness of grief.
You who look for signs amid the trees and birds of the air that there is yet some life able to flourish and fly.
You who struggle with even the simplest things.
You who have given up on the why, and need to know how – how to be, how to move, how to breathe, how to live.
The heart knows its way home. It does. The heart – your heart – has always hungered for wholeness, has always delighted in joy, has always longed for love, has always looked for the truest way.
This blessing may not be the one you expect. Yet it is the one you receive – even as your heart aches, and healing seems slow, and days long.
This blessing meets you where you are and remains with you – in the silent spaces, in the open wounds, in the private pain, for as long as you need.
This blessing knows that even though it seems impossible – you will be well again, you will be whole again, in the fullness of time.
Let breezes sweetly whisper through the trees at midday
Let clouds drift lazily across a buoyant spring sky
Let the sun’s brilliance gild rugged hillsides nearby
And let it all remind me that this day is holy
Let friends call and listen tenderly to my pain
Let strangers offer a kind word or gesture
Let hours pass and leave no trace of regret
Let this day unfold with a gentleness born of grace
And let it all remind me that this day is holy
There is no denying this world looks different to me now my future blurred by uncertainty love’s healing work barely begun and the cruel finality of death no longer merely an idea
But let the birds sing in the morning let friends be present by my side let moments of contentment quietly come let memories wash over me like a balm let joy one day follow these days of mourning let healing imperceptibly take root and grow
And let it all remind me if I have the courage to see it that this day indeed is holy
I didn’t truly understand before how deep loss can pull you under how traumatic death can feel how it ends a world
I knew that death was profoundly painful for the ones left behind I knew it was life-altering I knew it was accompanied by many tears and heart-stopping screams in the night and even cursing of the darkness but I didn’t really understand
I knew that life is fragile that our days are not guaranteed that while we bear the divine image we live in mortal bodies and that it can all end in an instant
I knew that I wanted to show others empathy that I wanted to accompany them in their pain and that because of my calling I was a visible reminder of the holy whenever I visited the dying or grieving but I didn’t really understand
A world ended for me this day
January 27, 2021
While the world around me carried on as though nothing had happened my world collapsed it burned itself out it shut itself down it ended
My world was you and me in all the sacred messiness of our relationship in all the hopefulness for life yet to be lived in all the simple joys of faithful companionship in all the blessings of traveling this road together
Then in a moment it was gone
And I finally began to understand
Had I tried to imagine the searing pain the throbbing heartache the sickening permanency that accompanies such a loss I doubt I could have
Empathy only reaches so far
So here I am wounded disoriented vulnerable frightened alone
A world ended for me this day It was the world with you, my beloved, in it
In the morning as you cautiously rise from your side of the bed I am there.
I am waiting hoping it has been a restful night.
You are out of breath from the simple act of sitting up. You are tired in more ways than anyone can know.
Yet your smile reaches out and melts me. Will I remember the feeling of this moment?
Memory is imperfect when up against the complex beauty of a human soul. Memory only goes so far and then you want nothing less than to be in the presence again of the one you love.
You are sitting there on your side of the bed and motion me to come near. The nearness is the most comforting to you as well as me.
You lean forward placing your head against my chest and rest and breathe quietly prayerfully beautifully
and then you raise your head and look into my eyes and I into yours and without words we are reassured love is here.
Our vows till death do us part will soon reach their consummation and yet love only increases and mystifies me in its tenacious hold over me.
You are the rest of me you said to me more than once and I truly believe it for in those eyes I get lost in you for all time.
~ Mark Lloyd Richardson For my beloved Dallis March 16, 2021
Eight years after her initial stage-4 breast cancer diagnosis, my wife Dallis, the love of my life, succumbed to this horrible disease. She made a valiant and determined effort to live, and thoroughly enjoyed all the remaining days and years she was given, and yet on January 27 of this year, she breathed her last breath with me and her daughter Wendy by her side. Since then, my emotions and frame of mind have been swinging wildly all over the place, and I write to give voice to the internal struggles I feel and to try to make sense of my place in the world now that she is gone. Here is something I wrote a few days ago, and then let sit for a while before sharing. I wouldn’t read it if I were you!
Attending to the broken places (Just when you thought it was safe to read my writings)
Among the questions that grip me and won’t let go are: How was it possible for her to leave me? How could she say goodbye to our shared life? How was she able to give up on our future dreams?
The very questions trouble me, for they sound like accusations. They also sound unanswerable, and yet not considering them hurts too.
My intellect tells me that my beloved needed to choose personal agency over the constant intrusions of medical necessity. Her quality of life had deteriorated so much that no other path seemed tolerable.
In a sense, she had no choice but to say to everyone, including those dearest to her, enough is enough: I don’t want to do this anymore. I feel more like a bundle of problems to be tackled than the living, breathing human being who once found so much joy in being alive!
Still, the questions haunt me: How was she able to pull it off? Was my love for her too little to hold her here – at least long enough to bring her nearer to a time a healing, to tip the scales toward life and wholeness?
And lamentably there are other unanswerable questions: How did she think I would feel when she was gone? What did she suppose would be left of me without her? Did she not imagine how abandoned I would feel?
In case there’s any doubt, this is me stumbling around in the murky land of self-pity and blame. This is me doubting myself and the adequacy of my love. This is, in other words, the ugly, petty underside of grief where it’s all about me, all about my struggle to breathe again, all about my pain, my sorrow, my emptiness palpable in every room every movement every decision every discarded dream every flood of tears.
So, I urge you to avert your eyes. This is the pathetic, needy portion of grief. There is nothing lovely here, nothing beautiful, nothing worthy of admiration. Only sad proof of all the broken places where my wounded heart now lives.
dreamprayact 