Elder

 I didn’t cry for at least 22 hours. It was too big. 

My head intercepted the warhead meant for my heart and began to try and dismantle it. Try and think it through. Try and decide how I could prevent the incineration of my very self. Minimize the damage. I walked slowly, blank-faced, silently, from room to room. I touched all Jonah’s things. I laid down in his bed. Focused on breathing. I felt my heart beating out his name. Jonah. Jonah. Jonah.

At 11:30 the next morning, my soul’s chosen sister and friend since childhood, Susan, walked in the front door and straight to me, lying silent and blank-faced on the sofa. Without a word, she lay down next to me. I smelled her shampoo, so familiar and evocative. A tiny crack in my protective shell. The tears burst through in a ferocious torrent. . 

She knows what it is to grieve deep love. She was someone I knew could withstand the universe of sorrow I needed to release. The intensity so great, I feared my husband, Elijah, my mom, my dad, could not endure. I would break their hearts again. My own grief would double theirs. Watching a mother grieve is a fearsome thing indeed. We each needed our own mate. Our own sherpa. Our own Samwise Gamgee. I knew it was her. 

Grief changes us. Actually changes our bodies physically, chemically. Alchemy. I am drawn to the idea of the phoenix, not just for the hopeful resurrection and emergence from the ashes, but precisely because of the formation and gestation within the ashes. I am not a firebird. Not yet. My heart has been consumed by flame, scathed and scorched, and finally reduced to chalky, smoky ash. But within there is the stirring of something new. Something that will emerge a honey-voiced beauty of vermillion and gold, but also remember the place of cinders. 

Francis Weller, the astonishingly wise psychotherapist and Author, has spoken about the lack of elders in our culture. He is not speaking about older generations, per se. He is talking about the cultural role of an elder that he has found in other communities around the world. Those who have endured an apprenticeship with sorrow, and been refined to meet the pain and suffering of this world with compassion, dignity, and robust bearing. Those who carry this soulful wisdom on behalf of their villages and guide others through the impossible pain of living.They are not afraid of the wild edge of sorrow because they have been there before. They know the way. 

I didn’t know it then, but Susan was the first elder to step into the circle. She reminded me to breathe. To drink water. To eat. She took me by the hand when I needed rest, climbing in bed beside me, holding my hand while I slept. She cared for my house, my people, me, while I managed the unimaginable work of simply living. Unspoken understanding. Loving presence. Constant solidarity. Bearing witness. Exactly what I needed, because she remembers the ashes, too. 

She was the first, but there have been more. So many more. 

And there will be for you, too. 

Find your elders for they remember the ashes.