I read the story. I felt sorry. My heart hurt. My eyes hurt. I felt bad from the inside out to think something sad had happened to you.I walked around in a bit of a moment. My fingers frowned and couldn't find the keys to type. I heard you say that you didn't want to share the story. I heard you not say that you hurt, but I hurt for you. All of the brave and the vulnerable realities swelled up to look at me and they wondered if I knew what to be on about, when a friend lost a friend that he cared about.
We only get a few who understand us and love us the way that we come, packed and broken, with tears at the seams. It's a bittersweet melancholy that takes one of them off to be waiting for us to follow. Can we follow? I'm feeling lost and slow and like I have not learned to sing. That's not right. It was your loss, not mine.
Oh where are the stars when a boy needs walk through the snow at night? I need to go even if only in my mind. Sometimes a hand to hold is a sparkling light, that can reignite and warm a heart. Sometimes a thought in the cold winter night that is crisp when the rest of the world sleeps the sleep of no cares can be caught just right by a heart that is needing a thought. Sometimes it can be delivered like a kiss on the air.
How is it I come to stand at my ice covered window? How does the past, the present, the future so call to me? What words do I have to answer the yearning, the question, the wondering about the wellness of every one that I love?
Left alone thinking on a winter night. I read the story again. I hear you talk through all of the math that really said. Don't look. Don't listen too hard, please. You might see. You might hear.
That's why I'm sorry. That's how I finally understand why dogs howl at the moon.
All of my brave and vulnerable howls at the moon, tonight.
--me strauss Leting me be
5 comments:
My best friend suffered the loss of his older brother to cancer when he was a young boy. He never grieved for him because the emotions were too strong for a child of his age.
Years later he met me and I encouraged him to feel the things he never dared to feel before. Together we decided he should write a story about his loss. He gave me a copy, and when I read it, "Howl at the Moon" is exactly how I felt, what I thought. You're an artist.
-Maggie
Hi Maggie,
I wrote this because a man, a dear friend for decades lost someone too. He felt a loss. So I felt a loss. I wanted him to know. This was the way I could say so.
Thank you for telling me your story. Thank you for saying you've been there too. It's the humanity that you found. I hold your compliment in my heart.
Liz
Liz,this is so beautiful. I want to share with you this poem I wrote for my dear friend that passed on two years ago:
The Legend of Mighty Max
My dear friend Max left this Earth yesterday.
This morn' I celebrate his stay.
I celebrate his smile, his warmth, his easy laugh.
I celebrate his silly southern sense of sass.
Max gave us love, gave us light, gave us life
Max meet me in Miami... Madrid... Mandalay Bay... Or maybe even Muscle
Beach.
For one more cocktail.
Work long, work hard, play long, play harder...
Hey...
You know
That was the living motto of Mighty Max Herrera
Sunny, funny,
Audacious, bodacious
Antique maven, well-heeled fashionista
Thoughtful, carefree
You know
The first
To extend a hand to one in need
You know
The biggest heart of Gold I've ever seen
You know
The Legend of Mighty Max Herrera
And
You know
I am not alone in my yearning
That he were here on Earth
For me
To love
just a little bit longer
I love you Mighty Max
You are a living legend in my heart.
Roxanne Diana
June 5, 2007
Wow...Liz that was beautiful. I am a grief and loss therapist and worked for hospice as the director of the children's grief and loss program for 5 years. Loss changes us and your story was such an amazing way to convey to your friend that you hurt for him-even though he couldn't quite admit that himself. I love your blog! Thanks for writing about such a painful subject that most people try to avoid. I am writing a memoir about my own loss experience in hopes to help others know it's ok to feel the intensity of grief-
Blessings,
Stephanie
It's so beautiful and creatively expressive, Liz. I'm so sorry for your loss and I feel it with you.
What you wrote is how I felt for a very long time after I loss Jo. I had been injured in a car accident a month to the day when I lost my beloved friend who was like a mother to me. She had heart surgery & never came back to us. I grieved alone because the rest of the world as I knew it was gone. I was numb for months dealing with the injuries from the car accident and the depth of my loss.
My fingers ache while yours frown because I know that even time doesn't fill that space when we lose someone we love like that. My heart cries & sighs with you. It gets better, each passing day, but that space in our hearts where they are will never be filled quite the same again.
We grow, we heal, we let others in we love new friends, but that special place that they filled inside us seems to always remain a bit empty even though filled with a million wonderful memories that smile.
I feel with you and for you and because of you. ♥ ~Sprite
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