Thank You

For a long time I felt that I didn’t want losing Isaac to be… A jumping off point or opportunity to learn or grow. I didn’t want to be opportunistic with tragedy– I resisted the idea even as the wisdom was streaming in, in painful waves. It felt icky, somehow. It was resistance at its finest. It was someone else’s idea that I latched on to and tried to make my own, I think. Not true for me, though I tried to make it fit, as if eschewing a deeper truth made me pious with grief as a stand alone experience. I was looking to others to show me how to navigate this treacherous terrain and feeling inadequate and just chronically and unbearably uncomfortable. But my body finally said “uncle”– said “listen to me, missy– you’ve been living outside of me, trapped in your head and self judgments– and here’s where we’re at now– in crisis, so listen up sister.” And so, with a great heaving, a bit of pouting, I have surrendered enough to lay my burdens down by the riverside… Finding that inside of me resides a sturdy and steady self with fierce and gentle intuition, intact, patiently waiting to guide me in each moment, a clarity that comes when everything that is not true eventually falls away. It is a potent force yet a quiet thunder that vibrates inside of me, for me. I am beholden to all that pain, grief, loss has taught me. I say thank you to Isaac so often, each time of reckoning with this. I always have– even as I tried to not “use” the loss. I see now how impossible it would be for my spirit to survive, NOT to learn and grow from this most precious loss– how embodying all that I am and all that remains and all that has been taken, all of it, is the only way through. As I’ve considered this these last couple of weeks, convalescing from a stress response in my body, i started singing a song that I haven’t heard– haven’t even played now, during this time, but kept coming through me. I don’t think it’s a coincidence!!!
Fuckin A.
What Isaac Taught Me In Death…
Thank You by Alanis Morisette :

How bout getting off of these antibiotics

How bout stopping eating when I’m full up

How bout them transparent dangling carrots

How bout that ever elusive “could have”
Thank you India

Thank you terror

Thank you disillusionment

Thank you frailty

Thank you consequence

Thank you thank you silence
How bout me not blaming you for everything

How bout me enjoying the moment for once

How bout how good it feels to finally forgive you

How bout grieving it all one at a time
Thank you India

Thank you terror

Thank you disillusionment

Thank you frailty

Thank you consequence

Thank you thank you silence
The moment I let go of it

Was the moment I got more than I could handle

The moment I jumped off of it

Was the moment I touched down
How bout no longer being masochistic

How bout remembering your divinity

How bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out

How bout not equating death with stopping
Thank you India

Thank you Providence,

Thank you disillusionment

Thank you nothingness

Thank you clarity

Thank you thank you silence…