The Wheat from the Chaff

There is no goodbye. Not in terms of Susanna. Two years ago yesterday was the day my daughter was buried during a day-long driving rain. I was hoping she would like the chapel with stained glass, and the winding pathways in the picturesque historical cemetery. We invited a clergy person who asked my son to pray for his sister and spoke some words to everyone which I do not remember. I believe he waved a censer with fragrant fumes. I hope it was frankincense, a scent which has since come to me while sleeping and become my favorite healing incense. I remember him chanting and speaking of returning to Jerusalem. I imagined a puzzled look on Susanna’s face, my daughter who lived her whole life in Brooklyn.
When it was time to leave that chapel we were asked to drop roses onto the white box. I knew no one wanted to be first, so I went up and placed mine immediately so I could go home. I rode in a limousine with family and friends as we left, but my soul had bailed and run away already. Cemeteries are for ancestors, dead people. My daughter is not there.
Everyone’s life is unique, and so is everyone’s grief. To me the ground is a place to plant seeds and sit on at the park in May. When I smell soil I feel a reverence and a deep sense of mystery. Somewhere in my consciousness I know we come from the earth, our original mother, but I can only handle scratching the surface. When I want to be with my daughter I am more likely to find her by opening her dresser drawers. This is where I have washed and folded all of the clothes I bought her. This is where I am still her Mom.
Do you know what I can say good bye to? Things I no longer want or need. Petty concerns over societal achievements. Activities I have pretended to like because I think I am supposed to. False security. Self-criticism and messages of self-doubt. The sun is slowly creeping back into my life again, and I am here to greet it however it appears as someone who is free. I am forever changed and even forever sad, but also terminally dedicated to what is real and important. “Separate the wheat from the chaff”. That line comes from the bible but I remember it from the David Lynch film, “The Straight Story”. It is a fact based story about a man, too old and blind to drive a car, who rides his tractor to see his dying brother. It takes kahunas, this life, no time to waste. But all that is worthwhile does not die.