Death - 10,000 Miles

I watched the movie Fly Away this week and when the song played during the final scene I started bawling. It was a total surprise to me and I wondered what that was all about. The song is by Mary Chapin Carpenter and was really her first big hit.

The song is called 10,000 miles and is basically about someone leaving and promising to return. There was some much sadness in this song. I thought about the pain of losing what you didn't know you could lose. The song states even though I am 10,000 miles away I will return again some day. I say the last part is just wishful thinking.

I did get some sad news at the beginning of the week that has made me focus on loss.  The founder of our Art League passed suddenly from something I assume was medical since there were no details. He was young with a family and will leave a huge void personally and within the art community.

I am on vacation this week working on my house. It has been neglected since I moved here. I have evidently practicing being instead of doing. I am full up on being and plunging head first into doing. This week I cleaned the garage, power washed the porch and painted my deck three times.

While painting the last three days I had a lot of time to think about death and loss. It is something we will all get a chance to experience. With my own faith I don't fear death it can't be any worse than being left behind. The person going on at least gets all the answers but being left behind you are stuck with only questions and grief.

With any significant loss you are taken from a place of thinking you know what tomorrow looks like to total uncertainty. Of course the uncertainty was there all the time the loss puts it center stage. You can either embrace the clarity of the moment or you run like I did.

I just couldn't accept there was no safe place to go. I couldn't accept there was nothing I could do to prevent things from changing. I couldn't be better, I couldn't watch closer for signs of trouble I couldn't even pick a better person to spend my life with.

It is just the way life is and we have to learn to live with it. I have lived in fear of doing something wrong all my life and now I think what a waste of time. I worked hard to do everything right assuming that I would find happiness and safety.

Nothing from the past is hurting me now because I know now it wasn't my fault. Did I play my part? Absolutely, but so what it is just the way life is we do our best with what we have to work with. I can no longer grieve for what might have happened if I had done something different. I have wasted so much time thinking about what I have lost instead of seeing that it doesn't matter. Only what is happening today matters and bracing myself for the future sadness ruins the reality of today.

My mind has been stuck in the loop of the question of why.  My mind loves these unsolvable problems and once it takes hold it takes a miracle to break this loop of problem solving.

A healing has taken place in me that can see this so clearly now. I have been lost in my mind and now I can accept that there is no way to prepare I can just live and deal with what happens next when it gets here. I am free.