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Showing posts with label sorrow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sorrow. Show all posts

....a moment of silence? or are we too silent?

This verse made its way out after President Obama announced

there would be a moment of silence for the victims of the Arizona shooting.


We are not the headlines....we can be the change we want to see in the world..




A moment of silence: it honors, is reverent
Yet perhaps now, today, ever-so-slightly irrelevant
In the silence is wisdom, reflection, and prayer
Yet also ambivalence (shrug shoulders) who cares?
A moment so brief and then back to distraction
A fleeting outpouring then default contraction –
The pain may be numbed, the sorrow diminished
Feelings reined in and perfunctory rituals finished
Yet who will sooth say that we’ve earned ourselves closure
By momentarily donning pale masks of civil composure?
Perhaps something different, a more earnest resolution
Might beget quantum leaps in our human evolution

Can we not connect up naked hearts everlasting
For the whole of existence, not simply in passing
Perhaps not a moment but lifetimes instead
To carry flowers to the living, light for the dead
And in place of the silence, the gesture outspoken:
Sweet kisses beyond tender, hugs that transcend the token
A touch beyond custom, a gaze caught, then lingered
Compassion and caring truly wrought, not malingered,
Collective blaming, decrying will not carry us forward
There are steps to be taken – not away from, yet toward
The first is to allow yourself fully to feel
The next to acknowledge your desire to heal,
Soon you let others know in true kindness expressing
That you recognize all that they carry! The blessings,
The pain, the loss, the joys scarcely known
And in their tearful eyes, you see mirrored your own.

In one moment of silence, untold songs can be sung
Words of love embosomed gently on the tips of searching tongues,
Unrestricted weeping melts away the frozen face of fear
And brings new life to barren blooms here, and here and here
Within the silence you will reap new treasures found within
And then you’ll find within the moment,
all begins and nothing ends.

Link for Rachel's Snyder's Blog....be whole now  I'm posting here with her permission..
but I found it at Stone Soup...


....life.



On October 26th babies Phoenix & Haiven were brought early into the world via an emergency c-section. Neither baby weighed more than 1 lb 12 oz…very, very tiny. And their skin so paper thin that I could actually see their hearts flutter.
They had all their finger and toes…and in my mind that meant that they were going live happy, blessed lives because I knew they were in a hospital where they would receive the best of care.

I had no idea, none, of all the many obstacles they would face each and every minute, and the many milestones they needed to meet.

In the neonatal ICU world of lights, beeps, buzzers and numbers on a screen, every second seems like victory…yet you are constantly reminded of how everything is so precarious…
little lives with such a thin cord holding them to us.


It is amazing how quick and easy it is to fall in love with such innocence, it literally happens in a flash of light…babies come into this life as pure love no matter the circumstances. I fell in love as did everyone who was touched by them during their brief time on this plane.


Phoenix, the big brother, left rather quickly…just under 3 days… a little less than 72 hours…We put all our hopes in the Haiven…a lot of hope for such a little boy. He survived heart surgery, and so many changing of tubes and procedures, imaging’s and different combos of medicines to keep infections at bay…and as the 3 week milestone approached we had reason to be hopeful….but his little body experienced a sudden flurry of things that simply went wrong and his parents made the heart wrenching decision to let him pass over.


I have a friend who says they never came to stay…that they indeed were little angels who brought us their gifts and quickly went back from where they came.


We had an Honoring for them.
Ritual is good……
the babies parents were showered in love, compassion and empathy…
they went through so much heartache,
friends and family stood witness to their pain and loss..…
We walked a labyrinth with paths of painted flowers and lit candles in thanks to Phoenix and Haiven for bringing more love into our lives and for bringing us all closer together.


I have asked myself why???? one thousand times.
This has been a crazy with grief, sad time, for everyone who had their hearts opened and softened by the birth of the tiny spirits that were Phoenix and Haiven…our angels. That is the gift they brought an opening up to make room for more love…a bigger, stronger, connection to the people we love…
They softened us towards each other, gave us a greater capacity for compassion.


Right now we are all so tender, the sorrow still comes in such big waves…unexpectedly, totally without warning. As with all pain, time heals…
I know this too will pass, leaving us more in touch with our humanity….closer.

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