SO I WENT TO A FUNERAL TODAY....
it is very interesting. i wish i could say that i was more sad...but the fact is that i am so happy for the person that has left their physical body it is hard to be sad for them. now of course i am so sad for my best friends and their families. i am sad because the world needs more women like aunt Bea! i am sad because we don't understand the death is birth and renewal. i am sad that we feel so sad. i am sad because it makes me miss the people in my life who are not here in the physical...but in that moment...i feel such peace for the person who once lived as we are and is now living in another way!
so, i sat there and closed my eyes and i just felt. i felt what was going on around me. i felt the sadness. i felt the joy. i felt the love. i felt the void. i felt the unhappiness of those living who wished they had done more with their lives. i felt the sorrow of the families. i felt the celebration of life on the other side. i felt the song that raised our spirits and brought us to tears. i felt the memories of all those packed into the chapel. i felt the truth of spirit and the lies of humanity. i felt the unity and the separation. i felt the separation that ignorance, religion and racism bring..needless to say i felt a lot in 45 minutes.
i started thinking on my way home...how do you sum up a lifetime in only 45 minutes? aunt bea had been through so much in her 88 years that it is hard to even know where to start. she buried her 2 husbands and 2 children...where do you start with that? she lived though...she lived and shined brighter than most that i have met.
where do you start with all the little things that happened throughout her lifetime that may or may not have brought her to her knees begging for grace and brought her to the heavens where she found new and stronger faith.
i was thinking of all the situations and people in my life that have hurt me. i thought of all the people and places that bring me joy. i thought of all the people in my life who i can trust who REALLY have my back and i can call a friend. i thought of all the people were not friends and that hurt me and the people who blow smoke up my skirt and pretend to care. i thought of the people, who in some way or another, have brought such immense pain into my life but were my teachers and played significant roles (nonetheless) and how much i loved the ones that have hurt me the most. i thought about how amazing each and every person and place are and is in making up my story as i go through this lifetime. i thought about how much i have learned in only a few months...let alone the past almost 43 years. the day to day at times can feel so overwhelming and at times just to hard to get through at times...so we stay in our moment waiting for the next moment...and we breathe! we think of the big picture. we think of ourselves. we think of how we affect other people. we think of the whole. we think of our place in the world...we become 'our own' place in the world.
i wondered when i die will people say i lived with class, grace and i triumphed over pain? that i taught people something and that i left the world a better place than when i came in. i wondered, as so many of you wonder, about the things in my life i wish i would have done different...or the choices that i have made. i sat as i honored aunt bea...wondering about life. my life...your life...aunt beas life. i concluded that all i really want to do i live! the ironic thing about me saying that is all i ever really wanted to do is be the one who got to go home. life is hard. it is painful and my whole life all i wanted to do was go home..i felt so separate from something i just did not know what. i am not going to kill myself. i am not unhappy. i am not miserable and sad. i just missed this part of me that i could never put my finger on. but then a funny thing happened when i began to feel again. i realized sometime ago that i was already where i wanted to be. my heart and my soul was not separate from but is a part of all that is. i did not need to feel home sick. i did not need to long for what was. i only needed to tap into what i already was and where i was at that moment. when i was able to do that i realized that that part of home was within me all a long.
today as i sat smiling, hearing aunt bea say to me, " be happy i am finally where i am supposed to be...and it feels good to be home". i knew she meant home with her family. she did her time here on earth (i was a little jealous i must add lol). as my beautiful friend mike said in her eulogy, "she came here to feel the joy"...88 years of joy may i add and that is a lot of joy.
aunt bea lived....boy did she ever! she triumphed over life. she came to win and she won. now she is out of this body and onto other things. as my lifelong best friends are at the cemetery, right now, placing her no more needed body into the ground....i sit here where i am guided to be, at home, with my "stuff", all alone psychically...but spiritually home with aunt bea and all of our loved ones around me reminding me to live; to take in the pain, the beauty, the sights and the smells and most of all...the feelings of being human...of what we call being 'alive'. we are truly blessed.
you see, aunt bea is everywhere all the time in everything and so are we!
so how do you sum up 88 years in 45 minutes? you just say she lived. she loved and let us love her. she brought beauty into the world and sang as beautifully as a lark bird. i know my life is forever different because of aunt bea and her being in this world at the same time as me....if only for a moment...her being here taught us it was all "ok" and "God brings us that in which we need".
i wonder, as so many people do, what they will say about me when i die! what will be my legacy and what my children and maybe grandchildren will say? i strive for people to remember that i lived authentic and real...that although FAR from perfect, i loved with all my heart...maybe too much if that is possible. that my heart broke easy and that i at times trusted people to much, but again that is because i saw their soul and not their humanity. that i to trumped over heart break and remembered who i was. that i taught one person something that they did not know before and i paved the way for others to live their best life that they could . that i forgave and rose above and that i too had class and grace. that i was one ' rockstar spiritual bad ass warrior' and that i crossed over finding my voice, standing up for myself and always being able to stand within my own truth. that i was not afraid to live anymore and i found my wings to fly!
now you see why aunt bea was so amazing...she continues to inspire and to set your heart free from wherever she may be!
it has been asked before:
what do you want your legacy to be?
what do you want your 45 minutes to say about the person you were and how you lived your life?
