The Final Good bye

At the time of my mother's death a decision was made for me that I choose to accept. Some where far away from my grief and yet very much a part of it a decision was cast that I would no longer entertain conversations that didn't ask something of me. Something fresh, creative, vulnerable, beautiful, courageous, thought and something dangerous to my ego (or perhaps to that of society) must be called into the  conversation. For conversation is life. It is engagement. It is the "stuff" relationships are forged from.

No longer could I chat idly with a martini in one hand and dribble pouring from mouth and a mind disengaged. No longer could I care for avoiding intimacy in even a stranger I'd never see again. Too much would be lost in these precious moments with chit and chat. Relationships mattered more -as much with a passerby in a fleeting moment as with an old friend. What was once a fledgling moment was no full of possibility and opportunity for what I did not know except perhaps something richer than I had allowed of myself or others. With death each moment counts and so with life too.

That either fertile ground that would be toiled by the human of spirit or that I would quietly die because of the absence of one's heart touching mine was now too painful to pretend wasn't happening. Each time pretense postured itself as the topic of conversation I used death's swift hand to bury it to search for some treasure I'm was sure lurked nearby.

Watching my mother's passage from this place to the next life lit a smoldering patch of sage brush inside my soul. At the scent of the sweet herb was fired up I danced a new dance, bowed to a higher more courageous one and have learned new meanings of love that Hafiz wrote of.

I thought I was saying good bye to my mother. That was the illusion. The reality was she was leading me into a closure I desperately needed. Her death was my death to those things not of love and matter. Her death is  my re-awaking, my right of passage.

Now with no parents I become the parent. No longer the child I stand as the grown one; the adult in the room waiting to talk with whomever passes by.