Optimistic Voices: True Love Will Find You in the End (Daniel Johnston)

Sunday, May 26, 2024

True Love Will Find You in the End (Daniel Johnston)

Today is eight months since Eric's death, and I am depleted. Others' words will have to suffice... 🤷

"Release tears, as many as you can. Gather them in a golden chalice.

Draw out the salt and pour it in a circle around your feet, for protection.

Let the water teach you how to spill.

Count the screams of rage that are resting in the back of your ribs.

Notch each one that you release along your spine, from tailbone to skull.

Add honey for your throat, each time the wailing is done.

Put your feet in some dirt and let the earth hold you. Run your fingers through the grass. Take counsel with the songbirds and listen to the poetry writing itself along the cracked edges of your broken heart.

Find water. Leave an offering of sweetness and pray for the capacity to hold it all, then pray for the strength to release. Understand that we are all rivers flowing into the same ocean body.

More salt, this time with sugar and screens, to numb the pain. Alternate silence and sitcoms, crying and laughter. Don’t stay for too long, but also, stay as long as you need to.

Find moments of awe and joy. Orient towards people and places and experiences that allow you to feel free. Make this your True North. Go out, witness, listen, act, and come back to this place. Rest. Repeat.

Find your breath. Put one hand on your heart. Wait until you sink back into your body. Wait for instructions. Listen for the way love wants to move through you. Feel the way that grief is love." ~ Gina Puorro

"It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal.

That’s the pact.

Grief and love are forever intertwined.

Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.

There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence.

It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe.

Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist ; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence.

These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be.

They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness." ~ Nick Cave

"Grief is like the ocean — a constant surge of waves, a continual collection of salt and tears. Sometimes grief is loud, both tidal and tempestuous, an overwhelming pain that breaks you open and crashes against your heart. Other times it’s quiet, discreetly hiding beneath the surface, presenting itself as a steady hush of longing. Grief is full of unknowns that can only be discovered when swimming in its depths. Some days sorrow and joy will be intertwined, a delicate dance of dark and light — both deserve to be softly held, both belong in sight. When grief calls you to its edge, tread gently in its space — for no matter what you feel you are always held by grace. You cannot slow down the ocean, you cannot tame the sea, so ache, laugh, break, mend — let your emotions free. Driven by the tides, your pain will recede, but like a persistent undercurrent, a sense of longing may never leave. And that’s the art of living on but never letting go. If you're ever lost in the infinite sea, may you find peace in knowing that unending grief is also endless love. For grief may try and weigh you down, but your love for them will carry you. Always." ~ Bryan Anthonys

“An open letter to everyone in the before:

One day after Emma died, I wrote this: “There is no fix for this. There are just people sitting beside you in silence as you cry and your spirit groans.”

There is no fix for this.

It’s true. And I can’t speak for all of us in the after, but I never wanted a “fix.” Certainly not a quick one. Grief is a messy business. We don’t like messy anymore. We tuck and snip and suck and filter the messy out of our lives. So when we are confronted by it, it looks ugly. Painful. There’s another thing we don’t like: pain. So we look for a solution. A quick way out of it. A balm. A prayer. A pill. A fix. But there is no fix for this.

Grief is holy ground. It’s hallowed. There is something so beautiful in that. I don’t think you could understand unless you’ve been… through it? No. In it. Deep in it. It is sacred territory.

I never wanted my pain to go away. I only wanted her back. And since I knew that wasn’t possible, the pain was always necessary. It still is. The sadness. The loss. The soul-sucking weight of it. It has to be felt. It has to be lived.

If you don’t curl up with it, you’re a fraud. But we also know–those of us in the after–that you can’t stay there either. Holy ground must be visited. And carefully. If you try to camp out there, you might never come back.

I knew instinctively in those early days and months that she transitioned in an instant from the living to an occupier. She would occupy my thoughts and tears and regrets and love and I would be the keeper of her memory. But not just her memory. It is so much more than that. I would testify that she was here. That she was real. That she lived. That she loved. That she was beautiful–not perfect–and that she mattered.

We are the keepers of the occupiers. It’s a deal that we in the after make willingly. I never wanted this to be fixed. How could it be fixed? It’s almost profane to even suggest it. And there is beauty in it. This is the hard part to describe.

The Bible says that God makes beauty from ashes. It’s a line in a popular worship song and I get pretty excited when I sing it. Because it's a bold-faced, audacious, obstinate-in-its-unbridled-confidence claim that Emma still lives and I will see her again.

I believe that.

But there is also–somehow–beauty in the ashes here, too.

I don’t get it. I have struggled to understand it. And to explain it is even harder. It almost feels irreverent to try. But that is part of being the keeper. Explaining.

So, maybe.

Maybe it’s this:

Maybe the love we keepers feel for the occupiers is stripped of all the temporal trappings that corrupt it. I don’t have to remind her to get up or do her homework or come home on time anymore. We don’t get bogged down in correction or confusion. Maybe the love we have in the after is as it always should have been: an unconditional love for the soul without any expectations, without any frustrations, without any suppositions. Just…love.

Maybe that’s it.

I just know that when you’re stripped of the presence, and left only with the essence; when you have the hope that there is beauty from ashes; when the occupier and the keeper can hug it out and agree to move forward despite the pain and anger of the loss… that is a beautiful place that is holy and not only unfixable, but worthy of not being fixed. It’s as unique as the life was. It’s as perfect as the person.

So next time you are face to face with ugly, messy grief, sit in silence as the spirit groans and consider it holy ground. The person who has been slammed with life in the after is now not only the keeper, but is now formally occupied as well. Know this. And know there is a sacred beauty there that cannot and should not be fixed.”

Sincerely,

Emma's mom

Sherry Bullock"