Lessons from the Sky

When I gaze at the infinity that is you, and lose myself in its beauty and vastness, Death and pain have no meaning, they are insifnigicant.

Rabindranath Tagore

Hikers and backpackers all know what it is like to seek healing on a mountain trail. I used to call it walking away from the pain. Over the years I learned that the message from the trail was always the same. Whatever it was I was worried about did not matter very much when viewed in the context of a jagged peak touching the sky or a mountain meadow strewn with wildflowers. I returned home refreshed, ready to face the world again, and grateful as always for the lessons the trail had taught me.

This time I am not so certain. Forgive me for being self-indulgent with my grief in a blog that is supposed to be about solitude and hiking, but I cannot return to writing with honesty unless I share with my readers the great loss I have recently experienced. About a month ago my grandson and I went looking for my husband and found him dead on the floor of the garage, where he had been puttering with one of his engines, his dog Bruno by his side. I like to think that he was doing what he loved, tinkering with an engine with a faithful dog nearby. I found this thought comforting. There is very little about this experience that has been comforting, so I must grab onto whatever I can find.

Stan died of a ruptured cerebral aneurism. It was quick. Yes, another one of those comforting thoughts. . .sort of. In the flurry of events that have followed sometimes I almost forget why I am so busy and overwhelmed. I remain distracted by the various tasks that are demanded of a widow. Then it hits me when I have a rare moment of quiet time, usually sitting by the fire in the evening with my two dogs.

I like to think about the way animals die. They go off somewhere secluded and give in to the natural order of things. Their bodies are picked clean by coyotes and ravens. Even the bones disappear eventually. There are no death certificates, no estate to settle, no funeral plans to be made.

I hope someday when my time has arrived I might do that and spare my daughters the anguish I have experienced in the last month. At best I can prepare to make the process a little easier for them, but I doubt that my body will be left out under a tree for the ravens to scrub clean.

One week after Stan died my grandson Keith went outside to take a look at the night sky. We have no light pollution here, so the stars were putting on quite a show. “Big Mama,” he called to me. “You gotta come out and take a look at this.” I walked outside and looked upward. Then I saw it, first a shimmering streak of white barely visible streaking across the sky above, then turning to silver and finally pink and green. It was the first time I had ever seen the northern lights, and it was putting on quite a show.

I like to think that Stan was up there in the heavens shining down on me. It is a comforting thought, though as I have written before I am not a religious person, and a comforting thought is not necessarily true. But I know this. The world is still a beautiful place; it shimmers and shines even when we are grieving. All we have to do is look up.