grief

Deaths in Karmic Batches

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I’ve read that when people reincarnate, they may do so in batches, sticking together for their progressive learning. I find the idea mostly pleasing. But I hadn’t thought about how that might call for group exits. This fall-winter has knocked me on the head with two deaths. First my beloved brother (my only sibling) on October 10. Now my stepmother, January 19, last week.

Death’s absoluteness blindsided me. You can’t plead for just one more phone call or visit. You can’t ask a departed person to send you an occasional text message saying  they’re doing fine in that foreign country called the afterlife. Whatever language they speak there is mostly incomprehensible to me. Grief is in the silence.

To process my karmic batch of exits, I write, of course. Today my stepmother’s body is being cremated. It’s a hard fact. I awoke into it not happy. But the impenetrable is what writers write to penetrate. We try to write our way behind the curtain, even when that’s impossible.

Death Is Not Subjective

You can’t negotiate it, finesse, or spin

it visceral skull-hardness

into soft-sweet resonance. You can’t flex it.

When I touched her folded, white hands,

I felt permanence. And impermanence

seared me in its icicle grip. I forgot to eat

all the rest of that day,

but then I followed it with a binge,

because while I am still alive

I need to learn the lessons of being

by hand, tongue, skin, and muscle.

By illness and overeating,

exercise, and petting my dog’s

silky strands. Chill fog is the right element

today, this day of a disembodiment,

winter tucking deeply in, life whirling

in sharp flakes inward,

behind a white curtain.

The road ahead

unclear, yet I travel

deep into the till then unknown.

I need to cherish even fatigue,

and remember what my brother told me

on his last day: to hug harder.

A hug is not subjective.
Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.

My brother’s art and service created a beautiful life

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This week I lost my dearest brother, David Abramson, one of the kindest, gentlest people I will ever know. Sixty-four years was not nearly enough to be connected, so I’m sure we’ll meet again in the next rooms of existence. Among the several arts he pursued — visual and culinary as well — was the bliss of making music. He wrote songs, he led several bands, and he was always learning more about his craft. In the last year of his life, he was deprived of the ability to sing, and even to talk much. I’m posting this video generously shared on Facebook by his band mate Paul Henry so we can all hear his voice again. There are many more recorded songs, but few videos. I cherish this one! The guy with the long gray ponytail is David Abramson, my little brother who I recently awarded elder sibling status to for his wisdom and support. Rock on, Davey. I’m sure in the between-life you’re in now, there’s a band waiting for their lead singer.

Art was something we learned at home, from our painter father and musician mother. How making it, at any level, is bliss. I would watch my father at his easel, contemplating intently the strokes he had just made with the brush, dipping it in the jar of turpentine, and a little in the oils on his palette, maybe remixing a color, and then just a dab or two on the canvas. Then he would step back and observe. Then step in again with another idea, This could go on for hours.

I believe it was from observing a creative mind at work that David and I learned that creating is bliss. Our mother was at the piano, practicing her parts in the Pro Musica Chorale performances. Sometimes she would just play a whole piece for the beauty of it. We observed that same absorption and self-transcendence in those creative moments. He took up painting and I took up dance. He would up with music and I with writing as our main forms of making. I’m sure he will be making music in the next room where he has gone, and in the rooms of life beyond that one. I’m sure at some point we’ll again make things together, the way we made support and kindness for each other as siblings.
I’m measuring my grief in memories. 

It feels like homework from God,
remembering you, brother.
Digging deeply into the stream
of memories and feelings as they flow
past the stone pillar I’ve lately become.

I sort and weigh the meaning
of having a brother of such fineness,
seamed with gold
as he served his many communities,
silver-haloed by a fine long mane
as if you were the older one,
which would at least have made a little more
sense of your having to leave first.

Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.