This Is A Place Of Surrender

this is a place of surrender and it's always been so - what I find is that even the things I cling to have already been let go, lost to me in any meaningful way of holding on. Grieving is the art of recognizing what's gone and allowing the deep sadness that arrives to takes it place without rush for it to leave. It's a private sorrow and yet so obvious as well. With this, here, I recognize my surrender, the loss of my father and the roles we've played together. Everything's now let go...

and becoming something other.

even while alive, his last few months, years really, this was a place of surrender, each moment we let go a little more of what was cherished and no longer now an option. My father took this all with grace, his gradual decline of strength, from cane to wheelchair, ease of breath to need of oxygen, everything immediately accepted even with the wish of altering the outcome. There was no denial of his condition, he faced it all as fact and only sought to strengthen himself for what was sure to follow, to be ready for a further letting go.

today is my dad's funeral, tomorrow is surgery for removal of skin cancer - this is always a place of surrender, each moment some aspect of life is altered in subtle, and sometimes sudden ways. Yet surrender isn't a true loss, not total, for even now the particles my dad surrendered are in the midst of becoming something other, perhaps a molecule of breath is shared between us, and there will always be a part of him alive within me, what I carry through DNA and soul. 

so what's lost is only recognizable form, and if I look, clearly, I will find him just as present to the world, alive in ways not imagined before. Yes, there is a constant letting go, loss, and the grief of change - life is meant to be altered to its course, one thing decomposed to feed a new beginning, atoms shifting to another form, death in order to rebirth as whatever is to follow. I don't imagine heaven, nirvana, nor the reincarnation of a self. But life remains, continuous, even in a place of surrender. 

~

Peace, Eric