War?

It is the biggest battle, the battle with the self. I see it everywhere. People fighting, obsessing, causing strife. People working hard to create a pretense. I see it, on a clear day, as the fight we come here to witness and attempt to resolve. I especially include myself. I want to be finished, emerging as an airy wisp of completion. I have little interest in being a warrior anymore. Yet here I am, sitting on my horse for another day, holding a sword. I have come here with things to do until the last day, and then I will do what comes next, eternally.

I say this because no one has told me not to be sad anymore. No one has told me they are tired of hearing about my little girl, or the pain which does not follow me like a shadow, but more accurately lives within all of my cells as a part of me. Maybe, people might think this, which is not of my concern. Maybe, some people have long ago moved on and remember Susanna as an occasional passing thought. I think about her every minute. When I do not know I think about her, my heart thinks for me during the seconds in between. This is my job because I am her mother. This does not change with death. She is outside of the line of vision for most people, but never for me.

Last night I dreamt that Susanna was here with me, in our place of strength in the kitchen. I consider this part of my kitchen a power vortex. Here, we used to bake and cook together as she stood on a chair. We opened the jars of herbs and spices just to inhale. The magic surpasses the recipes. Supernatural events have occurred there which I will save for another day. Instead, dwell on the picture of Susanna sticking her hands into flour and savoring what that felt like on her fingers.

During the dream, I knew she had died but I had never lost sight of her. I was explaining this to various people, this fact that I could see her all of the time. I was greeted with some perplexed faces but I was heard and believed. The question I had was: “Can’t I send her to school? I can see her. I can touch her. I have not lost a thing.”. When I woke up, only for a second, I saw a shape by my bed. I do not know in which dimension it was, but it was Susanna. She was there to show me that she did not go away, and I believe her.

There have been many times in my life when I have felt like it was my purpose to shine pure hope and optimism over others, exuberantly. I love that. I am proud of that. But I no longer wait to be restored to something I used to be. While we are all still hanging around in linear time we go forward, we cannot unsee what we have seen. We cannot return to an earlier state without carrying all the wrinkles and the history. I will rise to the challenge of whatever battles present themselves today, and my biggest hope will be to battle with grace. Like a sage. Like a crone. Like the person who has grown streaks of silver hair and has cracks in her heart, like me.