{"id":219,"date":"2010-11-10T01:57:40","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T20:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/2010\/11\/10\/blessings\/"},"modified":"2010-11-10T01:57:40","modified_gmt":"2010-11-09T20:57:40","slug":"blessings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/blessings\/","title":{"rendered":"Blessings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cBut listen to me: for one moment, quit being sad.\u00a0 Hear blessings dropping their blossoms all around you.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0— \u00a0Rumi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There was no need to go, no reason, really, to drive for seven hours in the rain just to say \u201chappy birthday.\u201d\u00a0 I knew this.\u00a0 Knew that the trip was more for me than for my son, who didn\u2019t mind at all spending a birthday away from home.\u00a0 We had sent him a card, promised a family dinner over Thanksgiving break, planned to call in the evening.\u00a0 But in the end, I baked an orange and chocolate cake, put Neil Young\u2019s \u201cPrairie Wind\u201d in the cd player, and headed south.\u00a0 Eighteen years ago, I gave birth to a boy.\u00a0 Yesterday, it seemed more important than anything that I put my arms around him, if only for a moment or two.<\/p>\n

On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people gathered for my friend Diane\u2019s memorial service.\u00a0 Diane herself had chosen the music and the readings weeks ago, and then she\u2019d marveled at how strange that felt — both the wrenching process of letting go of so much she cared passionately about, as well as the opportunity to envision and, to some extent, orchestrate her own goodbye.\u00a0 And yet, once she knew that she\u2019d been given a job she never wanted — the grave task of completing her work here on earth and then figuring out how to leave — she set about that challenge just as she had done everything else in her life. Quietly, privately, with thoughtful determination and a desire to ease the way for those she loved.<\/p>\n

As the first mournful strains of Barber\u2019s Adagio for Strings poured forth from the choir loft, it seemed that her spirit filled the church, too. Surely, having given us the solace of this timeless music, she was there with us, listening.\u00a0 And as hearts opened and tears flowed, something\u00a0 began to shift deep within me, sadness drawing itself up into a kind of newfound intention — to live more consciously, to love more fully, to serve more generously, to stay in closer touch with my own capacity for joy.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is grief\u2019s paradox — that in acknowledging the pain in our spirits, in tending with mercy to that which is breaking open within us, we are also given an opportunity to undertake the beautiful, aching work of becoming more fully ourselves,\u00a0 committing more deeply to our own true path.<\/p>\n

And so it was that I made a trip yesterday that I might not have undertaken with such urgency even a few months ago, before I watched my friend grapple with her own grief over all that she would miss and then make her fragile peace, instead, with gratitude for all that she had had.<\/p>\n

\u201cSounds like a lot of driving,\u201d Jack said, when I told him I was coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I admitted, \u201cthe truth is,\u00a0 I can\u2019t quite let the day pass without seeing your face.\u201d In my mind, November 8 is always bleak and blustery, a day of bare trees, lowering skies, intimations of winter. And it is also a day whose chill is offset by my own consuming happiness, and by my memories of the day eighteen years ago when our son Jack arrived and made our family complete.\u00a0 What solace it brought me, to hand him a birthday card with an \u201c18\u201d on it, a bag of winter hats and socks from home, and a chunk of homemade cake.\u00a0 I took him out for a steak dinner, we talked about school, his college plans, his friends.\u00a0 And then I drove him back to his dorm and kissed him good-bye.<\/p>\n

It feels as if there is no way, anymore, for me to be the mother I still wish to be — close by, all-knowing, participating in the minor ups and downs of every day.\u00a0 But of course my young adult son neither needs nor wants such a mother now; he is living a life he loves, thriving, finding his own way away from us.\u00a0 So I embrace instead the precious hours when we are together, giving up at last on the idea that I\u2019m still preparing him for life\u2019s voyage, that I might yet come up with the scrap of advice, the single line that will make all the difference and point the way.\u00a0 There is no such thing, of course. What\u2019s more, the ship has\u00a0 sailed; he is already on it, charting his own course.<\/p>\n

Still, driving home alone late last night, under clear, cold November skies, I felt the opposite of lonely.\u00a0 A little raw still, but not quite so stricken.\u00a0 One thing I\u2019ve realized these last few days, is that I can tune right in to what I\u2019m coming to think of as the \u201cDiane channel\u201d in my mind.\u00a0 I listen, and I know exactly what she would have me do — go forth, give everything, cherish everyone, be grateful.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty certain that I wouldn\u2019t have driven for seven hours just to have dinner and a hug if not for lessons learned from her.\u00a0 And I know, absolutely, that she was with me all the way, that somehow she came along for the ride. Which makes me realize: her legacy is something I\u2019m only beginning to understand.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had a glimpse of it, though.\u00a0 Already, blessings are dropping their blossoms all around me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBut listen to me: for one moment, quit being sad.\u00a0 Hear blessings dropping their blossoms all around you.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0— \u00a0Rumi There was no need to go, no reason, really, to drive for seven hours in the rain just to say \u201chappy birthday.\u201d\u00a0 I knew this.\u00a0 Knew that the trip was more for me than for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,30,31,32,35,39,8,9,10,14],"tags":[88,198,201,209,301,363],"class_list":{"0":"post-219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-faith","8":"category-gratitude","9":"category-grief","10":"category-healing","11":"category-letting-go","12":"category-midlife","13":"category-parenting","14":"category-parenting-boys-parenting","15":"category-parenting-teens","16":"category-soul-work","17":"tag-blessings","18":"tag-gratitude-2","19":"tag-grief-2","20":"tag-healing-2","21":"tag-motherhood","22":"tag-rumi","23":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}