On losing a friend to death:
Every day of our lives, causality is playing out, leaving no one behind. One day, we are working on causes; dealing with consequences the next. Some days, our past comes knocking back, just to see if we learned from it the lessons we were supposed to. Sometimes, the lesson is compassion. Sometimes it is self-love. In the last month, I’ve been pushed to look at the past twice, once to learn to forgive and the other to see where I would be if I hadn’t learned my lesson. I learned the latter by losing a friend.
Sometimes, the hand that held you at birth has to be the one to pull the plug off your life. If we don’t own our actions we can call this cruel, because causality forgets nothing and forgives no one. We are here to learn lessons, and learn we will – now or later. Today I stared at someone else’s life as if looking through a one-way mirror. I saw pain that didn’t heal, lessons unlearned. There was a time I wanted to own someone else’s pain and make it better. I wanted to take that hurt and make it smaller. We can share pain and it’ll keep on spreading, but lessons are rarely learned on the collective. We all have our path, our cross to bear, our blood to sweat.
Today I lost a friend and realized once again that pain can kill. The most beautiful soul can drown in a sea of circumstances, bad choices, spiritual muck. Sometimes we come full circle to realize that the lessons we were supposed to learn were not learned at all. And sometimes all we can do is stare at someone struggling through the muck, with compassion. Briefly though, for our own muck is waiting to be dealt with; our lessons waiting to be learned and our paths ready to be journeyed.
Rest in peace M.R.G.
Amen Tuttysan, amen.