And This I Pray....

My eyes opened this morning and my heart hurt. Before the day began, before my feet touched the floor, I felt the excruciating pain of loss. I must have slept that way.
 
Spring did not return to me yesterday; in fact the temperature dropped to 38 degrees and there were snow flurries. Last week, I was enveloped in 84 degrees of daffodil blooming spring and yesterday I faced a stone-cold, unbending, bitterly cold day. The snow was light but angry. So much anger. It makes me cry, not a PMS cry but a broken heart cry. I needed spring to understand my vulnerabilities and to wrap me up in it's warmth. But it was unable to yield, unable to give, unable to express even the slightest amount of compassion.

My day continued to unfold with a tearful call from my girlfriend, telling me her friend Paul is nearing the end of his battle with cancer. She's going to fly out to Florida for a memorial next week. It was this very week in April four, or maybe five years ago when Paul hosted us for a long weekend in Fort Myers. He was bigger than life then, treating us to yachts and limos and a hotel right on the beach. And today, he is preparing to take his final breath here in this life. I will pray for him and all who knew him.

I had planned to spend this weekend with good friends at their lake house. I have described my girlfriend Vicki, many times as walking sunshine because you always feel such warmth in her presence. Her essense is positive energy. She is exactly what I needed today with my broken heart. The next call I took was from her. She and her brother are flying out to Utah first thing tomorrow as her mom, who has been in hospice care, has taken a turn for the worse. She, like Paul, is nearing the end. I will pray for her as well.

My little birdie friend is caring for her dying mother while navigating her way through all that comes with that. I've been there, I know what she's going through. She's reaching out to The Leaders of the Free World for encouragement. She usually sinks deep down into her pain and removes herself from us until she feels whole again. This time, she is calling for us and I want to be with her more than I want sunshine.

I've always found it interesting how the same word can have two immensely different meanings. I'm a writer so I pay attention to words and meaning; yet, I can write a post with one thing in mind and have it read by another who interprets it exactly contrary to my intent. For example, I was asking him to stay but he thought I was telling him to go.

It reminds me of the expression, a lump in your oatmeal is okay but a lump in your breast is not. I finish my day today and I wish for many things. I wish the radiologist hadn't told me he didn't like the look of the lump in my breast this morning. I wish I would not be facing another surgery. I wish my mom hadn't died of breast cancer. I've been through this three times now, each time has been okay, no cancer, just necessary precautions. Now I have a lump in my throat as well. 

I want to to take the pain away from all of us who are suffering these losses and I want to run away to a place where there are no ex-husbands going to jail, no painful break-ups and no lumps in my breast.  I want to get in my car and drive south until I find a spring that is real, a spring that is committed to stay. Then I want to get out of my car and lie in the grass on the side of the road for a while.

It's moments like these when I scream to the universe to take me away and soak me in your warm water with glistening bubbles and floral scent. Let me stay there until I'm ready to face this ugly world, where pain is inevitable.

Then the universe answers back when one of my friends reminds me not to get my cape wet. Suffering is optional.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, the encountering may be the very experience which creates the vitality and the power to endure ~Maya Angelou.

I will pray today, often and well. It's really all I can do.