Bodhissatva

Anam Cara – Soul Friend

My Beloved

Teacher

Healer

Best Friend

My Boy

My Son

The Light of My Life

“In Tibetan Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is anyone who is motivated by compassion and seeks enlightenment not only for him/herself but also for everyone…

 

and because of this- I need to be around people who “get it”.   I am feeling a bit lost with friends that don’t quite know what to do with my continued grief.  They certainly don’t need to say something perfect to get me over it.  That ain’t gonna happen.  I just want them to know there is this gaping hole that is ever present and I am not going to be myself for some time..How much time?  who knows, maybe years…

This is a quote I resonate with right now:  ”  Dead: The act of goneness, an incomprehensible  event that leaves me mute”.   I am truly humbled by this process of grief.  It has forever changed me.  The change has no label or explanation yet..it is just so apparent to me that I am no longer the woman I was 4 months ago.

Because of this monumental shift in my perception of Life- I am going to a pet loss support group tomorrow.  I wonder who will be there, what stories will be shared,  how many tears can fill a room.  I just want to tell someone that knows- our story.  The love affair between my boy and I.  It may sound cynical to say to you reading this- but I am quite sure- that this Love is my Love of a Lifetime.  It penetrated my wounded heart and healed it.   Benjamin convinced me that Love is possible, trust is possible,  healing is possible,   Everything is possible when Authentic Nature is the force behind Relationship.

Benjamin showed me that I don’t have to be anyone else but myself. I  don’t have to hide behind a mask or walk on eggshells or tell stories to keep your interest. I am simply good enough just being me.  This gift will carry me through this lifetime and I hope  ( and he does too!) that it enables me to give the gift of myself to others worthy of it.

 

They are right upstairs, with good people- Kate and Jen.  They have them next to a Buddha statue.  They brought them home from the hospital for me a few weeks after he passed.  I have not been able to have them with me.  Now I feel this welling up of wanting them here.  I will ask for them tomorrow. I will bring his ashes home.  It is only symbolic, I know.  He is not the ashes.  He is so so so much bigger.  He is infinite.

But bringing them home here to sit on his altar- is a step in my healing.  It says to me- I am accepting. I am surrendered. I am available for more opening.  I will cry a river of tears when I carry this wooden box home.  I will undoubtedly curl up and wail a thousand cries.  And with these tears- come a Surrendered Heart. I have no blocks, no boundaries, no walls.  My boy says- you don’t need them “where” I am at, mom. and he wants to bring this “place” to me- fully alive in my body,mind and heart.  He wants me to experience the Grace of a fully Open Heart.

These ashes will bear witness to my path of opening.  These ashes will continue bringing me to my knees.  These ashes will point me deeper inside my Silent Witness- the one who sees All and knows with no doubt that THERE IS NO SEPARATION.  My boy is here, next to me, in the Vastness of the Space called Unconditional Love.   I am ready to bring them home, and I am ready to continue on the journey Home, inside the Bliss of Pure Awakened Mind.

Benjamin, I love you forever.  The forever that has no beginning and no end.  The Forever that resides Now and has us always reunited and always connected.

I am tired tonight. but I feel compelled to say this- my grief is long and hard and ongoing. I am not done. I don’t know when this will be.  Actually, let me rephrase this- I may never get over this loss.  I am not asking for any special treatment or acknowledgment.  None at all.  I simply want my friends to know that I am forever changed.  I am cracked wide open. I am completely incapable of having a hard shell anymore. I have no armor on. I am soft and supple to any emotion and pain. I am vulnerable.  But not in the way that you may think. I am functioning okay. I am working, guiding, communicating, directing, organizing. but I am also not pretending to be someone I am not.  What you see is what you get.  I may be quiet, I may observe. I may be loud, I may be alert.  But one thing I will not be is inauthentic.  I am me. and  that means I am accepting all of me more than I ever have before. all my wounds, insecurities, and defects.  I won’t condemn myself much anymore. What a tired useless dialogue that is.

Benjamin wants one thing for me. Just one- Self Love..  His passing has propelled me to look deeply at all that I shunned inside myself.  “No more”, he says,”No more”.  “Accept the darkness and when this takes hold,I am right here, mom, to hold this space of Loving Safety”.

As I walk this path of self forgiveness, the grief goes on- the missing, the longing, the tears.  yet,maybe through these unending tears,come rejuvenation of this weary soul.  This Soul that met Benjamin a lifetime ago- and knows without a doubt- that our rejoining can happen in any moment- in the center of my broken open Heart.

The time will come when,with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome.

and stay, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give Wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your Life.

( One of my favorite poems because it speaks to coming back Home to Myself)

I just want to scream at the top of my lungs. I need to tell someone right now. I hope it is okay to share with all of  you-

I miss my boy so so so so much.,  It is unbearable in this moment.  I can’t believe I will never have him next to me again..  He was Goodness.  He was Kindness. He was  Unconditional Love and Acceptance.  He was Courage. He was Forgiveness.  He was  Perfection.

There is nothing I can do. Nothing I can fix.  This is permanent. All I can do is endure, endure, endure.

Life is going on, without my boy.  I am functioning at a fairly high capacity- working , mostly eating okay, mostly sleeping okay,  socializing now and again…and then WHAM!!!  I am on the ground, flailing in  my grief.  Humbled by the magnitude of my loss.  It has gotten to the time where I don’t share so much with friends.  They may make the assumption that I am moving through it.   They don’t know these quiet desperate moments of complete surrender.

There is the necessity of distraction and numbing- a little tv,  facebook, food, sweets,- all addictions that won’t kill me.  But then there is also the necessity of FEELING.  My heart knows that healing is through feeling.   Feeling all the huge massive wave of loss will ultimately quiet this mind.  It will ultimately rest my soul,  it will ultimately feed my hungry heart.

This is where I am at tonight- allowing the earthquake in my heart to register at the highest crest. No holding back, no stopping, no numbing, no distraction.Then I will crawl into bed, with a full and tender  heart,  This is where I will  find my deepest connection to my beloved Benjamin.  He is already there- patiently waiting for this busy mind to find its way back to him.

Human relationships are fraught with disappointment. From the time we are tiny babies to adulthood- people fail us.  No one I know had Buddha parents.  Some of us had great dysfunction.  What does this do to us?  Make us feel very unsafe in the world.  Our ground is not solid.  Our foundation is weak.  Either we become fighters, fleerers, or shut downers.  We experience the innate Trust that was in us when we were in the womb.  The trust that felt like Home, Goodness, Light.

I came into this world with imperfection  ( yes, they did their best, I know).  The instability instilled fear and worry in my little girl heart.  I grew up, but the little girl stayed the same.  She ran my world sometimes and it was run on worry, loss and disappointment.  I looked like a grown adult, making adult decisions like buying my first home…but often, inside-  the little girl crumbled when someone spoke to her meanly.  Or sometimes she would throw a tantrum- and spit it right back in the ignorant ass’s face.  Therapy helps. Introspection helps.  Humility helps. Self Love is Key.  Self forgiveness is massive.  and then came Benjamin, and he shifted everything.

He opened up my wounded heart.  He showed me through infinite devotion that true Love and Acceptance was real and possible.  Yes, he was “just a dog”- but Love knows no identity. It did not matter who or what came to show me that this Love was possible, the simple fact that my heart awakened was a miracle.  The messenger was a dog named Benjamin. The teaching was Unconditional Love.  Call it God if that makes more sense. I touched God, I came to Know God. I came to know and experience my own Divinity through a rescued Rottweiler.

This wounded heart experienced a deep profound healing because I was allowed to be Me. and not only allowed- but celebrated.  My boy celebrated Me- with his devotion, joyful connection and constant companionship.  It was like through me- he got to experience his own perfect being.  Our love healed each other.  His wounded soul before he came to me must have been fraught with fear and terror at the hands of a deeply disturbed person. He must have felt great distrust and fear with his world, just like me.  Then we met and the Power of Love  broke through the fear- and Divine Trust took hold.

Now he is gone, in body…But from his place with God, he now asks me to continue my path of opening to the inherent Goodness that is my Heart.

 

He asks me to never close again.  People will continue to disappoint and throw me off balance..but Benjamin says  ” Stand Strong and know that Love is Unchanging and Your Divine Nature is Here and Now, ready to carry you through any storm.”

There is no replacing my boy. There will be no  new dog to fill his space.  There is no new love affair  to fill  this  void. There is no new hobby, no new adventure, no new endeavor to make this loss feel less huge.  There is just enduring.  There is just time. There is just tolerance of pain. Life goes on.  I smile more. I laugh at my girls every day. The pack walks bring me peace.  But this void remains and I think it will always remain.  There is nothing that will ever fill  his space in my soul.  That will happen when we are reunited again.  When I get to Re-member that we were never separate after all.

I still can’t look at his pictures for more than a moment or two.  I just break down.  I miss my boy so so much.  I got to experience a kind of love that many will never know.  I got to directly know the Purity of Unconditional Love.  His essence  in my life healed me.  It convinced me that True Love exists and is real and certain and will NOT change.

I got to experience the joy of being a Mother to my boy.  I got to experience the  profound healing of his wounded being- through my love,devotion and commitment to never give up. In return- he taught me about Divine Love- Love that knows no boundaries, no beginning, no end, no judgment.

My heart aches tonight. A mother missing her son.  Good night my sweetness.  I love you.