The Darker Half

Christmas starts too darn early. Can we all agree on that? I love this time of year and I don’t want to speed through it. Autumn! It has finally come to Philadelphia with a major storm -taking all of the leaves and a lot of people’s power for a few days -ushering in crisp and chilly weather.

Here is my current mantel- I am using a lot of Amber Carnival glass and brass and some Ginger Jars. I love the russet and brown and gold of this season. It’s not yet time for the glitter and shininess of Christmas.

I am so busy but I know it is important for my kids (and for me) to do the decorating that marks the passing of the year. I try to make time for these little updates. It’s also just fun for me to mix it up. Traditions and cycles are important for me. I really resent the stores trying to force us into the next phase of life with their consumer Christmas push. This year, especially, I don’t want to rush- the change of seasons has been tough since my friend died in late Spring. The farther away we get, the more I miss her.

We are deep into the darkening time of year that so many cultures mark with ritual and tradition- Jack o’Lanterns from the old Gaelic feast of Samhain, Sugar Skulls from Mexico’s Dia De Los Muertos.

Today is “All Soul’s Day” in the Catholic calendar. The last day of 3 days that focus on the “thin veil” between the living and the dead.

It’s a busy time for a church singer. Besides selling my vintage stuff on Etsy and taking care of my family, I do a lot of theater, music and dance but my “day job” is church singing. After tomorrow, I will have sung 5 masses in 3 days and turned down 3 other gigs! I didn’t think twice about taking these Masses even though I knew they would be focused on our lost loved ones. Maybe I should have thought twice. Yesterday after a particularly loving, compassionate, and heartfelt homily that talked about loss of family and friends, a woman began wailing in the pew and then walked up to the altar, falling prostrate. The security guard began to come up but the priest gave him a sign to wait- knowing, I guess, that she was no threat and maybe needed to do this. Such deep pain she was expressing. Pain I feel too. It was tougher than usual to keep it together and keep singing, telling myself, “YOU ARE GETTING PAID, DEIR. SUCK IT UP.” I have to try to detach, sitting up on the altar in front of hundreds of people, counting tiles or organ pipes, examining the wood carvings , anything to block out the flood of emotions that I can’t afford to indulge at that moment. You can’t sing when you are crying. I know this from experience!

All the songs and readings are focused on those “Who have gone before us..”

Readings like,

“The souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment may touch them. Their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction, but they are at peace…”

I can’t help but immediately think of the torment my best friend, Kate, went through with Leukemia and the utter destruction her loss has left. But…”They are at peace…” I try to hold on to that. I try to believe that. It has been almost 5 months and although I sing and laugh and shop and cook and dance and plan and everything, the grief and I are reluctantly consistent companions.

Today, I wore this necklace in honor of Katie. Simple pewter, in the ancient Irish alphabet called Ogham, it reads, Anam Cara- Soul Friend.

Soul Friend

I saw one translation of this Gaelic phrase as “Compassionate Presence.” Saint Bridget of Kildare is credited with saying that a person without an Anam Cara is like a body without a head. Some people call their romantic partner their Anam Cara- like soul mate which is actually Maite Anam in Irish. To me, a romantic/love/marriage relationship is far different, though no less important. I am lucky to have that too. But my Katie, my Anam Cara, is gone. I often feel like something is so wrong, missing.

Without a doubt we were each other’s compassionate presence. When I was going through a long period of intense chronic illness, my husband was sometimes in too much pain himself, watching me suffer. I had to try sometimes to not bombard him with it all. Many times, I called her in despair or we got together and she was there for me. It wasn’t that she always knew what to say, only that I knew I could reach out and she already knew the whole story without being weighed down by it personally like my husband was. I know I was that for her as well and I am so filled with gratitude that I could do that. I could listen and sit and hug and make tea and hold bowls for vomit and help dress, tuck in, fetch things. I could reassure that “this too shall pass.” Which is always true. Whatever I could do to ease the torment just a little. I certainly wasn’t the only one either. I was witness to many acts of great compassion from family, friends, nurses and doctors.

Katie was in and out of lucidity near the end of her days and one moment she looked me right in the eye and said weakly, “I’m sorry, Deir.” That apology was for the future of missed calls and coffees and boosting and sharing that she knew I needed.

Like that woman in church, wailing and keening, so many of us carry the deep pain of loss and no amount of ritual will take that away, but like Katie and I often talked about, even a little better is… better! All the celebrations and rituals and traditions and colors and foods and gathering often help make it better– make us more human and bring us together. To all who are grieving, I am with you. As the season turns and I get further away from Katie’s physical presence, I am grateful that I am still here to experience life, to decorate my house and cook some soup and put on some costumes and go to a party and be awake enough recognize that I was lucky to have a true Anam Cara, even if it was for far too short of a time.