Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro' the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: Calm and still light on yon great plain That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main: Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair: Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep. ~In Memoriam, Alfred Lord Tennyson "In that hour she repeated what the merciful eyes of solitude have looked on for ages in the spiritual struggles of man?she besought hardness and coldness and aching weariness to bring her relief from the mysterious incorporeal might of her anguish: she lay on the bare floor and let the night grow cold around her; while her grand woman's frame was shaken by sobs as if she had been a despairing child?But she lost energy at last even for her loud-whispered cries and moans: she subsided into helpless sobs, and on the cold floor she sobbed herself to sleep she awoke, with the clearest consciousness that she was looking into the eyes of sorrow. She was no longer wrestling with her grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. . .. Far off in the bending sky was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness of the world and the manifold wakings of men to labour and endurance. She was a part of that involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish complaining? (George Eliot's Middlemarch 542-44). I don't blame God for bad things that happen in our lives. I think my questions of why are more rhetorical than actual disbelief or anger. It is just hard to figure out how to positively and agressively attack the deep sense of loss that pervades all of us in this crisis, and plug up the broken dam so we can somehow fix the gaping wound. I wish I could just have the hugest biggest cry session in the whole entire world, where I just let it all out instead of this constant fighting off the welling tears in my eyes, battling to keep the emotions stuck inside, compartmentalized and categorized with their latin names neatly printed on the outside of the emotional vials where they stay in their germ-free incubators. However, as the quotes above have said, the only way to "cope" is to accept, or embrace, that pain we are all given and make the most of it. I have to admit, that The Gibbs and Kahrs family is one of the most resiliant family I have ever met--snaping back to keep marching along the road, strong and erect, with love continuing to spill out for others. I loved that baby, and was the most excited than I have been for any other pregnancy, probably because I finally felt like I was going to be a first-timer aunt, where this child was born after I had already joined the family instead of being there when I arrived. My rhetorical question of "why" cannot be answered now for any of us, but baby Dillon is and will be much loved until the day the last of us die and his memory dies with us, but he will always be immortalized in our hearts and minds, and even more so in God's mind. I love you all very much. Blessings. Love, Jen I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all (In Memoriam by Tennyson).
