Author: Buzzy Donahue

The Fall

The Move to the Hospital

The last day she talked

The day I picked up her ashes.

For weeks I have stood on the mountain and looked up at the clouds but now I am back in the valley of grief.

I’m not sure how I got here. Was it when the massage therapist started rubbing my feet and an image of my mothers’ adorable red toes appeared in my head?  Or maybe it was when an old friend showed up and we talked for hours and then when he left  loneliness wrapped around my heart. I like being alone but lately I have been aware of my loneliness, that feeling of no one to  talk or hang out with. I saw mum everyday for the last six years and before that we talked on the phone at least once a week. Now, no one calls just to talk.

I felt like I had a sense of purpose being the queen mum’s caregiver and everyday I learned something new and let something go. Now I go to work, come home go to bed,  get up and do it again.

I watched the documentary about Amy Winehouse, it was very good but really made me sad. I grew up knowing musicians who died young; Janis, Jimi, Michael Bloomfield, Jim Morrison, the list goes on. When I was young watching all this talent I noticed that they all seemed to be good at their art but not so good at daily life and with fame and success came the dark side that too much money can buy. Money can’t buy true friends or love and we all know along with health these are the most precious.

Holy men encircle me; saffron robed monks listen as I explain how difficult and desperate I feel. I fall to the ground and cry, wailing from a place deep in my core. Patiently the monks wait for my tears to exhaust. I get up and they smile and remind me how I am loved, how I am not alone, how everything is fine. One of the holy men hands me a small brown bag of saffron rice “eat this it will give you strength.” All of this spoken without a word said out loud.

This dream changed my life. I knew everything would work out. I was being watched over. Spirit guides.

After my father died a crow screamed at me in my back yard till I did what I thought the bird was telling me to do. The humpback whales of Maui saved me from my recklessness and working to protect their population helped me feel a part of something. The dragonflies that watched as I counted whale pods remind me of that time wherever I live. The monarch butterflies in Mexico habitat became a spiritual experience in nature’s cathedral. Now I feel like someone is saying hello to me when one flies by.

     A new friend is diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and within a year is dead. A month later a spotted owl arrives in my front yard. Perched on a cedar tree for two days staring at me as I grieve. I sit outside on my patio and watch the owl for hours. I am in the presence of wonder and beauty as the owl balances on the thin branch with ease. A peace settles over me.

I went back to the pool today. One of the life guards asked me where I had been and I couldn’t think of a clever answer so I told him the truth. “I’ve been depressed.’ He went on to ask me if there was anything he could do to help and reminded me that swimming is good for depression. You know what else is good for depression? Having someone you barely know act like they care. Since I lost my best friend and mother there have been times I have felt so ALONE. I have gone for days not talking to anyone, just me and the dog. To have someone you barely know notice that you haven’t been around and give you a big smile can help so much when you feel fragile and heartbroken. I’ll go back to the pool because I love to swim and  I know it’s good for me and I’ll make sure to give the next stranger I see a big smile, because you never know.

I was having one of those moments of deep grief for the queen mum, swirling in sadness. I tried writing about it and found myself thinking about trust and how I don’t seem to have much trust lately especially in other people. So when I went to the yoga studio and saw the poster about a grief workshop and in the explanation of the class, trust was mentioned I thought it was a sign, maybe this is what I need. The shiny poster said you had to call and reserve a spot for the class as the size was limited and you had to be willing to commit to coming every week for three hours, I could do that. I called and talked to one of the two women who taught the class and she asked me lots of question and told me I would have to be interviewed by the woman in charge of the class. I waited for the call that finally came at the end of the week. Her message was long explaining how I couldn’t be accepted into the group until I talked to her but she was about to go out-of-town and wouldn’t be back until the day before the class started so I better get in touch as soon as possible. It reminded me of those business that call you on Friday right before they are about to close to tell you to call them back immediately and you do and they are closed until Monday. I was able to call back immediately and got the woman who was in charge of the class. She explained how the class worked using mindfulness techniques and journaling and art to help “the process.” I realized these were the same things I was already practicing and then she asked me if I was able to listen to other people talk about their grief, I wasn’t sure. As she continued interviewing me I realized I was starting to resent that I had to pass some kind of test in order to take this class, like I had to be the right kind of sad to get help. I also noticed I did not feel any empathy coming from the person who was in charge of the class. The trust issue was waving a red flag in my head. At the end of the conversation the woman indicated if there were enough people to take the class I would be invited to join but they couldn’t let me know until  the day before the class and we said good-bye. I slept on our conversation and decided not to take the class, I just couldn’t get past the idea I had to do a “song and dance”  in order to be part of the workshop. Childish of me, bad attitude, perhaps it wouldn’t be the first time. And yet there is part of me that thinks I found my “sign” and it is that I’m doing what I need to do for me, for now.

I took the dog for a walk at Port Hudson

The tide was out

We love this spot where mama G and the Capt. lived for years in their RV.

At the waters edge with views of distant snow covered mountains

Big clouds roll by some dark with wet drops of life

Birds on the shoreline

Rocks mixing with sand

Smells of tide, seaweed, and crab shells

I stood in the beauty when I heard a woman singing

In the distant

In the wind

An earth song of love and pain coming from deep inside

And for a moment I felt a time before now

When this beautiful place belonged to those who had always been here

Before a thousand mes came and changed it

When man lived with the earth and the wind and the sun and the moon

And the sea

Talked to the clouds, whispered to the birds

Blessed the fish, the water, the abundance

Just for a moment

I remembered

And I stood here

And I was there

I went to a poetry reading tonight. I have tried and tried and tried and I hate any kind of reading. Ok, that is not true there is this guy Bill Kenower who I enjoy listening too but he gives more of motivational speeches early in the day. I hate to go out, I dislike small take, I smoke da kind and so get paranoid when people whose name I’ve remembered act like they don’t know me. Let me say it again I hate small talk, so instead I over talk, try to be honest and funny ( always a mistake grasshopper) and end up standing there red-faced. The bitch is I am 65 years old, shouldn’t I have this down by now?

I imagine a salon with good lighting and comfortable furniture. Everyone has a glass of something and that smell in the air is more than incense. There is music in the background, slow and low and hits a place in your body that drums to your beat. And at the right moment you hear someone speaking words that catch in your heart, it’s poetry.