hand holder...

What do you do when your spiritual hand holder leaves you? Do you become bitter? Do you look for a replacement even when you are fully aware that one cannot exist? Do you hate them, resent them, what? What do you do when the only person that understands you leaves? I did it all. I was mad for no reason. She didn't choose to die. I was mad for many good reasons and many bad ones. How could she leave? How could she leave me here to deal with this mess all alone? And I was very very alone. I was mad at other people for not understanding. The anger still resides some place buried deep inside me. It's not the same and it's no longer anger at her. It's new anger. Anger toward her "significant other" - Kevin (Dean - he goes by both and I subsequently seem to refer to him as both). Anger toward her son (total asshat - she didn't even LIKE him - she loved him because he was hers). Anger toward her brother, toward God, toward fate or destiny. The anger doesn't help, but it's hard to get past it too. I know that in time I will heal enough to forgive these people whom I would imagine were also hurting so much. I know this because of the terrible shitty selfish way I feel when I feel angry or bitter toward them. Kevin was devastated. Of that I am sure. He was hurting just like me. He reached out as much as I think he probably could, but it wasn't enough. I need someone to protect me and that person was gone so I had to protect myself. At the time protecting myself looked a lot like separating myself from the situation so that I didn't have to deal with ALL the pain at the same time. I was hurting too much. A God awful hurt. A hurt I didn't know was possible. Kate was only 52...she was too young, too strong, too vibrant and energetic. She couldn't be sick let alone die. No one understood it - the relationship, the hurt, the true knowing of what it felt like to have your heart literally break - they couldn't because they couldn't relate. They couldn't because they had no reference point and I had no answers. For 5 years I walked around in a hazy "maybe this is how it happened" scene. Luckily her love for me shaped my life in so many ways that it allowed me to find the answers...to find her best friend. A friend whose love for her and for me amazes me constantly. This woman who loved Kate and knew Kate loved me also loves me enough to put up with all of the texts and emails, all of the crying, selfishness and whining. And boy have I cried. I've cried so so many times for the things she's missed, things I've missed. She didn't see me graduate from high school even though she was here and she died before she had the opportunity to see me graduate from college. She hasn't gotten to watch me grow into the person she always hoped I would be. The woman she told me that she used to contemplate with her friends. A young woman with passion and love who is constantly changing and trying to grow for the better. A person who stands up for what she believes in, has that same sense of social justice as her moms, and knows that you can be spiritual without having to do it by someone else's terms. She comes to me at night in my dreams. She comes there and holds me like she did when I was little. Just me and mama Kate on the white couch, or me and mama Kate and Martha laughing about photo shopping a picture, or her watching over me. She's here, I can feel her. I could always feel her love surrounding me, but I can't help but think...just one more time. I just need to see her and talk to her and have her hold me one more time. I know she didn't give birth to me, but she was my mommy. I am the first to admit I am a luckily girl to still have my real mom. Since mama Kate died she's (my real ma) become my best friend and confidant. She's taken on a lot of what mama Kate filled, but she doesn't have the words. The sparkling, zingy, loving words. The words I will never hear again. The part that hurts the most. No more loving hearty laughs, no more lectures about thinking before I speak, no more talk of Reiki and God and the meaning of life. No more hearing about how I'm different from most people my age with a list of reasons. It's up to me to guess what she would say. It's up to me to make my own way through life without my guide. All I have now are some parting words sent through my email to remind me of that love...that love that was one of the few constant, unchanging things in my life. That love that is still here if I'd just stop and look for it.

Remember, you are never alone. Not even at those times that lonliness feels like it has seeped through your bones and is filling your heart. Remember all the people who truly love you (and realize that not everyone does love you, as hurtful as that feels). Don't stop and think about the current difficulties you may be having with some of those people. Just remember that there is truly a love much greater than the difficulty. Focus on the love in those moments. I am not telling you to be a "door mat". I am telling you that it is imperative to remind yourself that there is great love here for you.

Read this letter everyday. It is written by someone who loves you. I have sent great love with it. My love for you is present vibrationally in each word. There is nothing more powerful than love. Kate