Some things cannot be fixed. No matter how much duct tape or WD 40 we use!
Some things should not be fixed. Sadness. Loss. Old age. Change.
These things ask instead for our loving awareness. Acceptance and presence. Permission to grieve. And time. As much time as it takes.
I’ve spent the past few weeks packing. Again. While I am so grateful to have lived in interesting places, to have learned new languages and explored new cuisines, it is hard to erase one’s life from a home. To clear away the photographs. To look at that ding on the wall—a reminder of the day your daughter got her college acceptance email. She was so excited, she jumped out of her chair and it fell against the wall. And the dog hair. Everywhere. Remembering when we brought baby puppy Riley home. Before we even had furniture! And the birthday parties and holiday meals. New memories will be made, yes, but saying goodbye is so hard.
And it’s hard because we care. We feel sadness because we love. This is part of the life experience. Love and loss. Joy and sorrow. Beginnings and endings. We lost a family friend yesterday. And today, I met a pregnant woman due to deliver any day.
As poet Lynne Knight wrote in “Three Years into My Mother’s Dementia”, Beauty is most needed when it is useless. When it fixes nothing.
In these moments of loss and sadness and change and uncertainty, we need to remember the beauty. We need to seek it out. Not to gloss over or bypass the sadness, but to remind ourselves that life is so big and full and rich and mysterious and dark and so very very beautiful.
Tara Zafft, Ph.D. 