Thoughts on Mourning & Light

On 2.12.12, my little sister Annie died.  I've lost all four grandparents, friends and acquaintances, but this death is my first encounter with the kind of grief I've only read and heard about--the ninja waves of sorrow, the paralysis of the absurdity of life going on when my world has shifted forever.  I cry more than I ever guessed I could, and wonder when things--if they ever do--will start to make sense again.  I am a shredded, tattered heart, a sorrowed soul awash in ache and loss in a skinsuit that seems to look just like it always has, doing just what it's always done.  I seem to look totally "normal" and feel anything but.

In our not very distant cultural past, we had other rituals around death and mourning.  Bodies were tended at home.  One sat shiva. One perhaps covered mirrors, and stopped ticking clocks (which in itself was interesting, as we had no cocks in the house that could be stopped--it's all digital).  One wore black for a specified period of time, depending on one's family and spiritual tradition.  These signs of grief allowed space for mourning and mourners to be held gently as they moved through a life-quaking change.

We've lost touch with Death.  It's been medicalized and for a complex of reasons, put at a remove. I believe that if we had a better relationship with Death, we'd be more inclined to be fully engaged with life.  We all need to memento mori, as it were, and one way we can do that is to witness each other in mourning.


Without a set ritual for mourning, I made my own.

I chose to actively mourn for a month (though now I'm wondering if that's long enough, but I can't even imagine what 'long enough' might look like).  Mourning is my light, a candle in this profound darkness of soul.

My guidelines for mourning:

All and only black clothing in public.
No jewelry or accessories (other than the embedded stuff that I never take out anyway).
No social/recreational engagements.
No preparing food or drink for groups or outside the home.
Permission to cry when and where ever the tears emerge.
Regular recitation of the mourner's kaddish and salat zhikr.
An altar, a daily visual reminder.
Silence.

The points:

Black clothing is a visible symbol of being in a different social state.  It has been challenging, as I long ago left the realm of all-black-all-the-time.  I miss color.  Black clothing is visible evidence of manifest loss, and  a way to embed remembrance and honoring of my loved one.

No accessories/jewelery: No extras.  No fancies, no surplus.  Light has left my world.  I am raw.  Screw vanity & keeping up appearances--I don't care how I look; my heart hurts.  I'm lucky to have managed getting dressed and leaving the house at all.

I don't choose to run the risk of using social encounters to mask my feelings from myself, or of inflicting my unpredictable tears on unsuspecting folks trying to have a good time.

My being is saturated with shadow.  I choose not to risk mixing that in with consumable sustenance for others.

Crying?  I believe that if I suppress this stuff, I'll bury it somewhere it doesn't belong, where it will reappear later and bite me in the ass.  I'd just as soon be fully present to where I am right now, thanks.  I'm sad.  My sister died.  Crying is normal and appropriate. This has made some uncomfortable, and has offered some an opportunity to see a need for comfort or even simple courtesy.

The prayers and the alter are to keep me mindful, and to keep gratitude strong in the front of my mind, thanking the Divine for Annie being in my life at all. 

The silence I'll be in on 3.12.12 is my way of intentfully evaluating and savoring my experience, marking a deliberate transition back into the world, even though I am nowhere near being "done" with this grief. 

In a place where nothing helps, ritual offers comfort and context for my feelings.  Right now, I feel like I could wear black forever, but Annie would hate that.  So a month of mourning it is.

I haven't touched my hair since I moved to Berkeley from Humboldt in August of 2010.  I have fierce calico patchwork head and an abundance of split, scraggly ends.  Not cutting my hair for so long was a ritual, too, but that one is just about over.  On 3.13, the day after I come out of active, visible mourning, I've told Lo to do something with my hair & I don't care what.  Something different.  Something changed.  Hopefully, something in its own way beautiful (fear not--Lo's licenced.  :))

The only constant in life is change.  Death comes for everyone.  Life moves on, and so will I.  This death has cracked me.  If the cracks in us are where light has a chance to enter, then I should be having lots of light wander in, light I will someday perhaps be privileged to share with others.  I hope I see it soon.