Hi Nuala -
Great thread! What a wonderful idea, at the close of the year, to share our favourite posts from 2015. We all share so much during the year and it's hard to choose a favourite as so many of the threads, and posts, have been exceptional in many different ways - I am inspired, educated and often moved to tears by Forum members' openness and honesty - the Forum is a Camino miracle.
A standout post for me this year was David's post in Deb's fantastic "CaminoDebrita's Short Film SJPP to Roncesvalles" thread. Here it is :
" Debrita - I do have to tell you that I really dislike blogs and Camino vids - I am old-fashioned perhaps, or should I say 'traditional'? but to me it seems that if one is doing 'selfies' and uploading them then one isn't 'on' Camino, one is merely an observer .. not a participant, not an experient .... and then I watched your video .. how sweet, how simple, how .. what? honest? - and the music absolutely bonded it ... I thought it rather wonderful - Buen Camino to you!
Although we know with absolute certainty that our loved ones will die it is still a great shock, a shock to the core, when they do go through that door .... rather surprising really as we knew they were going! It became my role to look after mother for some years ... from a slight distance as she had not been the best of mothers, nor the best of people, to say the least - but I was the last man standing so it fell to me and I chose to accept ... the last three years she was in a nursing home, her brain fading away except for some clear moments - and when she went, in natural time, I was utterly surprised by my feelings of shock and grief and loss - as if I was somehow not prepared at all, so, no, the age that we are when they leave us seems to be irrelevant. Then .. there is "carers guilt", the feelings that no end-of-life carer talks about, that we keep hidden deep inside; that we weren't good enough, not kind enough, not patient enough, that we did not give enough time .... but this is normal. For me, well, that five years, as I finally surrendered into it, into a plan that I seemed to be a part of, allowed a number of wounds - all the old wounds - to be healed and I finally blessed the Good God for putting me into the position and role that I deeply resented during the early times - and I found out that All is Well, that all is always well, and that our emotions - however difficult and painful they seem to be and however hard they are to bear - are a gift, a true gift, as they progress us in our climb to full humanity and our learning what true compassion and empathy is - so please do not think of your feelings about the death of your parents as a burden, nor be depressed by them - instead, think of those feelings as a blessing, a true blessing.
At mother's funeral last year my first born son, Joshua, wrote this and spoke it by her coffin - he wrote it for me and I love him even the more deeply for it - I hope that it will help you - and you too Joodle, Bless you - and not just you two but any carer who has watched over the last few months or years until the one watched fell up out of their broken body and gladly into the arms of angels.
I find that it is better if it is read out loud and slowly, slowly .....
"Death & Love or — The Relationship Between Mother & Son, and how in love we live forever
Death is, in many ways, a celebration of life. It is the bookend that curtails our time on this mortal plane, but it is by no means a door closed that we may never look beyond. This short period now is an intermission of sorts, during which the lights come up and we look around and we blink, and we talk openly about that which came before and that which may follow. It is a moment of contemplation and of reflection and also of rejoicing and of jubilation. It is not a moment of outright sadness, just as sure as it is neither a true beginning nor a true end.
When we see someone take death upon themselves, it is our chance to look at everything they were, as if for now, at least, their decisions are made and their actions are set in stone. And most importantly, what death is is a time to take stock of the one thing that transcends what we think of as time and place, and that thing is love — the substance in which we all swim — though oftentimes we realise not that we do, for it is as intangible and profound as the dark matter that holds our stars in sway. It is also as elusive, and equally as perplexing to define; and we convince ourselves that it evades our desperate groping for it, when we so often search with a singular purpose.
We write of love in the pages of whimsy as if it were the just reward only for those who are true of heart — the noble and deserving amongst us. But this is not reality, for love belongs to all, and it is the recognition of love in the unlikely places of the everyday that ennobles every one of us, and to feel it we must first recognise it, and to inspire it in others we must first understand the way in which we transmit it from ourselves.
Death of a loved one reveals many things to us. Most importantly it reveals how we loved this person, and how they loved us in return. Love in this way is traceable, as when the lights are up and our sight is cleared, that we may look both forward and backward with truth and with clarity; it is evident through our past actions how and when we loved and to what degree, and how we were loved in return. Sometimes at this juncture we realise that what we took not for love, and perhaps passed off as mere routine and diligent caring, was in fact love in its truest and it’s deepest form.
These oversights and blithe disregards are easy to make when the trappings of life bully our common sense, but in death we cannot let ourselves for a moment confuse what love for a person really is — it is a commitment to their welfare, even when it means a disregard for one’s own, and it is being present when an awareness of one's presence may in fact be absent, and it is pushing oneself to be the best that one can, for this person, in ways that one has to feel out and painstakingly discover along the way. After all this the feeling of love one receives is merely what echoes back when we throw our entirety into the void that is giving.
Some say that love takes a lifetime to build. I don’t know that this is true, but what I do believe is that at the end of a lifetime it is possible to understand love, or at least what the unique love meant between two people. Everything that was love reveals itself, just as everything that shrouded it’s clarity and purpose drops away. In this moment we can be sure in our heart that love existed and that it existed well.
Some also say that when we die we die alone, and that we take nothing of ourselves with us when we depart. I, however, know this not to be true, for if in death love only becomes stronger for those who remain, how can it be that such a tie is broken for those who depart?
If it remains here, then it also remains there, and in this way it is everlasting and it is true and there is no mistaking that it existed and that it will always exist for all the people who knew it."
All is well Debrita, Joodle, Jenny, Viranani, Angie, SeaBird, Kate, Peter, Alwyn, and to all you pilgrims who are still coping with loss, All is Well. Take your stones to the Cruz de Ferro, light your candles along the Way - do not be afraid nor embarrassed to cry, but also, do not be afraid nor embarrassed to laugh and to find Joy.
To you all - Buen Camino.
David xx "
The time, the care and deep thought that David put into this post was something that touched my heart. I've copied the post as a Word doc and I know that it will bring comfort to those I share it with who are going through difficult times. Thank you David.
Like Deb, I love poetry - another thread which seems to have slipped under the Forum radar is malingerer's "poems for seekers" thread. malingerer has a real talent for writing a GREAT poem and his love for the Camino shines out in so many of the poems. Here's a wonderful example :
The swifts of High July
slice the sky with screams
sharing the air with souls
building strength to southward fly
calling me on
Part of me already waits
in a Spanish city
for my feet to join my self
whilst my guardian angel sings flamenco
Cante Jondo
to call me North
and begin again.
Thank you malingerer.
Cheers and Buen Camino to all for 2016 -
Jenny