When I am gone, I shall go before you.
Think of me not as a disconsolate lover.
Think of the joy it gave me to adore you,
Of sun and stars you helped me to discover.
And this still living part of me
Will come to sit beside you in the empty room.
Then all on earth that death has left behind
Will be the merry part of me within your mind
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Hello Friends.
I want to thank all of you for being there, for helping to create sacred space and by showing your love and support as we celebrate the life and morn in the silent spaces Gary once filled with his smile, his playfulness, his mere presence, and above all his love.
"Give sorrow words" Shakespeare wrote "the grief that does not speak / Whispers the o'er fraught heart and bids it break" - I now understand why loved ones die shortly after the one they love dies - the pain the heart tries to withstand is at times to much - I often have to hit my chest to remind my heart to keep beating.
Gary was diagnosed with Cancer the day before Easter. I remember sitting in the hall of the hospital after having the scans. The nurse came out and said the doctor is on the phone. He went to the phone, was there a minute or two and came back and sat down. I have Cancer - over the phone they told me I have Cancer. I knew at that moment I was going to loose him - I could see the resolve in his face. The shock set in much later - phone calls had to be made, family had to be told. The love and devotion he had for his daughters won out - I was out numbered and I lost a part of Gary again.
Gary left for California 2 weeks later on April 19th. I never thought I wouldn't be apart of Gary's passing - but fear and grief do different things to different people and day by day a part of my soul was being torn away. I'm not sure if my heart will ever be able to forgive.
I was finally able to see Gary with the help of his brother Randy and his wife Cheryll on the first of June. Though Randy feels he didn't do much, I would never have been able to do it alone and for that I will always be grateful. Those few hours I was able to spend with Gary, to touch him, to kiss him, to hold his hand, to love him one more time, to see that look of joy on his face was the world to me - brought calm to my other wise shaky heart. I was never aloud to see or speak to Gary again. Even though we had spent the last five years together we were no longer "family"
A few weeks later on June 22nd, the first morning of Summer, Gary passed thru the realms - many of us had a notion, felt things we couldn't explain that made sense when we heard the news. I had to learn to breath....
There wasn't a time that Gary didn't walk into a room that my heart didn't skip a beat and a smile spread across my face. Just his mere presence made you feel young and in love. Gary and I had a love that was bigger than either of us could explain. I first meet Gary in 2001 while working at a specialty food store. Normally he would have never been my type. Their he was this older man, blue jeans , white t-shirt, long black coat and skinny lace up boots - but something hit me upside my head that day and said - him there that's the one! - really? hum? So I handed him this perfectly open peach colored rose kissed in red. He came in almost everyday after that and we flirted incestuously. Later I met his "girlfriend", who I became acquainted with, then worked for.... etc. All things that became history, past, a stepping stone as we called it for our coming together. A year later we were into it deep and a year after that he made his residence here permanent. He said it was the first time he felt like he was home. We said our vows in our own sacred space. If I could have I would have crawled into his skin and lived their forever. I loved him truly and will miss him deeply.
The life contained in you body,
Answering to gravity and exhaustion,
Hunger and Lust,
Is free;
The life you dared to express,
Pursuing you physical edge;
The life harnessed, as you caught and rode on the
wave of humanity,
Is free;
The life that sought the meaning of itself,
can now be itself;
The skin that fit you, weighted and held you,
Has fallen away
-without limit, without form-
your spirit is now free.
We celebrate your new freedom.
We bury the shell that held your life
We bury the dream of you;
We bury dreams we had of you;
We bury dreams of ourselves.
We offer back to the Earth what is hers,
Replacing the remains in the depths of her womb.
We offer back to God all we thought was our,
Releasing our claims to you.
I morn you: My life.
My Spirit. My soul.
I bury part of myself,
A part I imagined was me and is not.
What separated me from you, has fallen away.
All that I loose was never mine.
What moves my legs, my heart, my breath
will not die, or change.
This eternal me will remain bound to you
forever in love.
On July 22 Gary's family in Utah had a party to celebrate that love we have for him. We lit candles to show the light that he created in our hearts. We wrote blessing on prayer flags that at the end of the evening we set on fire and let rise on the smoke to where they were received. Then we let him go with a bang and a firework display. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we cried and above all we shared in that part of Gary that truely was.
I want to thank all of you for being there, for helping to create sacred space and by showing your love and support as we celebrate the life and morn in the silent spaces Gary once filled with his smile, his playfulness, his mere presence, and above all his love.
"Give sorrow words" Shakespeare wrote "the grief that does not speak / Whispers the o'er fraught heart and bids it break" - I now understand why loved ones die shortly after the one they love dies - the pain the heart tries to withstand is at times to much - I often have to hit my chest to remind my heart to keep beating.
Gary was diagnosed with Cancer the day before Easter. I remember sitting in the hall of the hospital after having the scans. The nurse came out and said the doctor is on the phone. He went to the phone, was there a minute or two and came back and sat down. I have Cancer - over the phone they told me I have Cancer. I knew at that moment I was going to loose him - I could see the resolve in his face. The shock set in much later - phone calls had to be made, family had to be told. The love and devotion he had for his daughters won out - I was out numbered and I lost a part of Gary again.
Gary left for California 2 weeks later on April 19th. I never thought I wouldn't be apart of Gary's passing - but fear and grief do different things to different people and day by day a part of my soul was being torn away. I'm not sure if my heart will ever be able to forgive.
I was finally able to see Gary with the help of his brother Randy and his wife Cheryll on the first of June. Though Randy feels he didn't do much, I would never have been able to do it alone and for that I will always be grateful. Those few hours I was able to spend with Gary, to touch him, to kiss him, to hold his hand, to love him one more time, to see that look of joy on his face was the world to me - brought calm to my other wise shaky heart. I was never aloud to see or speak to Gary again. Even though we had spent the last five years together we were no longer "family"
A few weeks later on June 22nd, the first morning of Summer, Gary passed thru the realms - many of us had a notion, felt things we couldn't explain that made sense when we heard the news. I had to learn to breath....
There wasn't a time that Gary didn't walk into a room that my heart didn't skip a beat and a smile spread across my face. Just his mere presence made you feel young and in love. Gary and I had a love that was bigger than either of us could explain. I first meet Gary in 2001 while working at a specialty food store. Normally he would have never been my type. Their he was this older man, blue jeans , white t-shirt, long black coat and skinny lace up boots - but something hit me upside my head that day and said - him there that's the one! - really? hum? So I handed him this perfectly open peach colored rose kissed in red. He came in almost everyday after that and we flirted incestuously. Later I met his "girlfriend", who I became acquainted with, then worked for.... etc. All things that became history, past, a stepping stone as we called it for our coming together. A year later we were into it deep and a year after that he made his residence here permanent. He said it was the first time he felt like he was home. We said our vows in our own sacred space. If I could have I would have crawled into his skin and lived their forever. I loved him truly and will miss him deeply.
The life contained in you body,
Answering to gravity and exhaustion,
Hunger and Lust,
Is free;
The life you dared to express,
Pursuing you physical edge;
The life harnessed, as you caught and rode on the
wave of humanity,
Is free;
The life that sought the meaning of itself,
can now be itself;
The skin that fit you, weighted and held you,
Has fallen away
-without limit, without form-
your spirit is now free.
We celebrate your new freedom.
We bury the shell that held your life
We bury the dream of you;
We bury dreams we had of you;
We bury dreams of ourselves.
We offer back to the Earth what is hers,
Replacing the remains in the depths of her womb.
We offer back to God all we thought was our,
Releasing our claims to you.
I morn you: My life.
My Spirit. My soul.
I bury part of myself,
A part I imagined was me and is not.
What separated me from you, has fallen away.
All that I loose was never mine.
What moves my legs, my heart, my breath
will not die, or change.
This eternal me will remain bound to you
forever in love.
On July 22 Gary's family in Utah had a party to celebrate that love we have for him. We lit candles to show the light that he created in our hearts. We wrote blessing on prayer flags that at the end of the evening we set on fire and let rise on the smoke to where they were received. Then we let him go with a bang and a firework display. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we cried and above all we shared in that part of Gary that truely was.
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