![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Another New Year
20/1/22 20:22Here we are at the beginning of another challenging year. Continuing my journey to find a spiritual path that I can believe in, without feeling like a fraud, I think I'm in a better place than I have been for some years.
This last few weeks have had me thinking about the people who have passed on before me, most likely because I lost two people in 2021 who made a deep impression on me. One, I was prepared for. I knew I admired and loved her - she seemed to have her life together and an answer for anything that came her way (even for Pancreatic cancer, as it turned out.) She was forgiving and accepting and she had taken some years to become this person, so, as such, she wasn't quick to judge, but seemed more focussed on someone's intent that in their achievements. She was my sister in law and she is still with me now, when I find myself at a crossroads in whatever I am doing that day. She never claimed to have the answers, but she always knew what the right thing to do was in a moral sense, in a way that was true to her and what she believed in. And she knew that I loved her because I told her that in every letter I wrote to her.
The second person I lost has also taught me a valuable lesson. Her part in my life was small in many ways - in fact, in a lot of ways, her role has become larger since she moved on. We were friends - not close - but friends. We would walk together in our village when we were both free, both with our dogs. C was a troubled soul - I though I knew the extent of it, but until I attended her funeral, I now know, I only knew a fraction of it. I would sometimes get called upon to comfort her when she had had a trying day, when she felt that things were unfair or when she was low. By contrast, I am the kind of person who puts on a front to all but my closest family. No one else is trusted with or is privy to my insecurities and my anxieties. I would cheer C up and she would marvel at my ability to be so buoyant all the time. And I am a positive person most of the time, but not to the extent that C saw.
When she died, I was away, visiting family. I didn't hear about it until a few days after I returned. A couple of years older than me but with a completely different life experience, she had covered up the extent of her illness from her children, her partner, her parents. I know that she had friends in the village, but they too had been shocked by the suddenness of her leaving. For someone who was so blunt but so easily hurt, who wrote terrible poetry and was brave enough to send it to her family, who was passionate about where she lived and about her children, who was not afraid to speak her mind, it was shocking that no one had had the chance to say goodbye or tell her how much she meant to them. If I had known, I might have thought harder about what C meant to me, how she had inspired me. It would have surprised her, I'm sure.
One love I had a chance to speak of, the other I did not. I think I carry both of the lessons they taught me. P's was obvious, beautiful and calm. C's was obscure, hard to hear, but just as inspiring. It comes to me in scraps and realisations - it grows with me and with each day that she has gone.
When I walk in the fields that she loved or around the roads of our village, I think of C. I am glad I knew her and I wish I had had the time to make sure she knew that before she'd had to go. Her lesson for me is one I am still working on.
This last few weeks have had me thinking about the people who have passed on before me, most likely because I lost two people in 2021 who made a deep impression on me. One, I was prepared for. I knew I admired and loved her - she seemed to have her life together and an answer for anything that came her way (even for Pancreatic cancer, as it turned out.) She was forgiving and accepting and she had taken some years to become this person, so, as such, she wasn't quick to judge, but seemed more focussed on someone's intent that in their achievements. She was my sister in law and she is still with me now, when I find myself at a crossroads in whatever I am doing that day. She never claimed to have the answers, but she always knew what the right thing to do was in a moral sense, in a way that was true to her and what she believed in. And she knew that I loved her because I told her that in every letter I wrote to her.
The second person I lost has also taught me a valuable lesson. Her part in my life was small in many ways - in fact, in a lot of ways, her role has become larger since she moved on. We were friends - not close - but friends. We would walk together in our village when we were both free, both with our dogs. C was a troubled soul - I though I knew the extent of it, but until I attended her funeral, I now know, I only knew a fraction of it. I would sometimes get called upon to comfort her when she had had a trying day, when she felt that things were unfair or when she was low. By contrast, I am the kind of person who puts on a front to all but my closest family. No one else is trusted with or is privy to my insecurities and my anxieties. I would cheer C up and she would marvel at my ability to be so buoyant all the time. And I am a positive person most of the time, but not to the extent that C saw.
When she died, I was away, visiting family. I didn't hear about it until a few days after I returned. A couple of years older than me but with a completely different life experience, she had covered up the extent of her illness from her children, her partner, her parents. I know that she had friends in the village, but they too had been shocked by the suddenness of her leaving. For someone who was so blunt but so easily hurt, who wrote terrible poetry and was brave enough to send it to her family, who was passionate about where she lived and about her children, who was not afraid to speak her mind, it was shocking that no one had had the chance to say goodbye or tell her how much she meant to them. If I had known, I might have thought harder about what C meant to me, how she had inspired me. It would have surprised her, I'm sure.
One love I had a chance to speak of, the other I did not. I think I carry both of the lessons they taught me. P's was obvious, beautiful and calm. C's was obscure, hard to hear, but just as inspiring. It comes to me in scraps and realisations - it grows with me and with each day that she has gone.
When I walk in the fields that she loved or around the roads of our village, I think of C. I am glad I knew her and I wish I had had the time to make sure she knew that before she'd had to go. Her lesson for me is one I am still working on.
Tags:
