My Brilliant Eyes
Days after my father died, I noticed my eyes were red, itchy, crusty. Figuring it was allergies, I treated them the usual ways. But when they showed no improvement, I went to the doctor.
"Your eyes aren't watering because of allergies. They're watering because your tear ducts (typed "ducks !" HA !) are clogged !"
I giggled for about five minutes ! YAY, OH, YAY !!! God bless this body !
Steeped in mounds of logistics after Dad died, I slipped into my Responsible Rita persona. I was on auto brain - organizing, directing, clearing, communicating - takin' care of business. Clearly, I wasn't taking care of MY business. Clearly, I wasn't allowing my sadness to rise, release, express. OBVIOUSLY, I wasn't as present and conscious as I thought.
Reflecting now, as I tenderly treat my brilliant eyes with warm compresses, drops, and wipes, I think I was afraid, scared to "go there," face into the depths of my loss. I was afraid~
~I'd never stop crying.
~I'd be judged as over-reacting, being a big, soft, dramatic baby.
~I'd go into big, ugly cries.
~I'd discover my love for him was somehow "abnormal."
~I wouldn't be able to function.
FEAR: never doubt its power...
These days I actually create the time to cry. As I hold a warm compress on my eyes, I remember tender moments with Dad ~ how we held hands in his last days, how he struggled to exercise in bed to get stronger for my son's visit, how he always, ALWAYS championed me, told me he loved me at the end of a phone call, on and on... I remember and invite the tears to fall. I also cry in the grocery store when I see his favorite food on sale, talking to his friends, MY friends, or even just sitting in nature (especially when I see a cardinal !).
I'm crying now. Breathing with my sadness and feeling it shift, morph into a quiet peace. Then the love settles in, and I can move on.
At The Hendricks Institute, I learned emotions all come from the same "hose." Jill Bolte Taylor, in her book "A Stroke of Insight," noted, emotions, if you face into them, accept and love them, take about 90 seconds to shift into something else. I'm finding that's true.
It's a beautiful day. Birds are happily singing, the palms are quiet, and my big ass dog is "talkin'" to me, telling me it's time to do something else ! :)
I do believe he's right.