Weaver’s Loom

I was reminded today of the peculiarly clever way that grief occurs over time. I was watching a documentary on Teddy Kennedy yesterday and was struck by the depth of feeling I had to his words at his mother’s funeral. He spoke about how she would be greeted by all the other family members who had gone on before, and I felt that profound grief for every loss that I’ve experienced in my life.

The greatest (and most recent) of these for me was my dog and companion Bo. I lost him a couple years back after 14 years of loving companionship. I grieved as deeply and profoundly as I ever have for him, but from the very beginning, I noticed that the grief came in waves.

At times there are the pleasant memories, then some consolation from kind words about how dogs wait for us in the after life. Other times, there were simple pleasant memories of times with him, things he did to amuse and warm the heart. And sometimes there was the pain of the fading recollection of what he looked like, or how his fur felt under my hand.

But always the relief and sadness taking turns, with each stretch of sadness being more manageable and more level with the good memories.

My belief about this is that we had to develop this way in order to survive. If we simply grieved until we were done being sad, we wouldn’t be able to do anything for months. If we “cried a river“, we’d die of dehydration or starvation. Our minds give us the reprieve from the grief so we can deal with the business of living, and to allow us to continue to connect with the world.

For me, also faith helps in this, since it gives us a way to view death as a transition rather than something final. Feeling that there will be a time to see your loved ones again, takes away the sting at times (although that comfort doesn’t seem to be available at other times, when your heart feels as if there is no point and faith has no power).

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When I was a little boy, I used to love to fly those balsa wood airplanes.You know, the ones that came in a flat bag, with thin sheets of balsa wood, a nose weight, a plastic propellor and a really big rubber band that you bought at the local grocery store.

They usually had red ink on one side that had USAF markings and a little picture of a pilot in the cockpit. You had to be careful putting them together, or the paper-thin wings or tail would break, and it would never fly right.

There was a park near where we lived in Alaska that was on a little hill above the ocean. I was flying planes there one day, and trying to see how far I could make them go. How far could I wind up the propellor before the rubber band broke? Would it fly straight, or crash and break in a million pieces? How much power could the rubber band give me anyway?

I was getting discouraged with fighting the wind, and ready to go home. All day I’d been throwing the planes only to watch them nosedive, or go nowhere as they bucked the wind, no matter how hard I wound the rubber band.

One last time, I wound the propellor a few extra times, and threw the plane down the hill toward the ocean. I watched in amazement as the wind caught the plane lifting it far higher than I could ever have thrown it.It flew out across the park, and over the sea.

It kept flying until I couldn’t see it any more, looking like somebody had actually filled the gas tank and taken it on a trip across the sea. It was still flying when I lost sight of it.

There are so many amazing things that can happen when we simply get out of the way and let the wind pick us up. All I had to do was put together the plane, wind the rubber band, and the wind took care of the rest.

By doing what we can do, being conscious and prepared, we can be ready for the greater gifts as they are presented.

Back in the summer of 2007, I was riding my bike every day from John Muir Health to my home in Livermore. I am a fairly cautious rider, so I would take the the Iron Horse Trail to keep my interaction with automobiles limited to cross walks as much as possible.

One day (June 18th, 2007), I was riding home, and I got hit in a crosswalk crossing with the green light. (more…)

When I was a boy, we lived in south eastern Alaska in the small chain of islands north of Ketchikan, first on the island of Wrangell, then the island of Petersburg. This was one of the most amazing places to be as a boy, the perfect place to learn about nature, and beauty.In Petersburg, we lived a couple miles out of town along this road that ran to the other end of the island, in this house that sat on stilts hanging over a cliff that looked out on the strait (almost all the islands there are so close together that if the water wasn’t 35 degrees you could swim to the next one). The house was nestled in the pine trees, and always looked like one of those postcards of a green forest with wisps of fog floating around the trees. It rained constantly, which was incredibly fun for us, since we got to play in the mud every day. We could always spot the tourists because they would be the ones trying to walk around the mud puddles.The house on the cliff was separated far enough from the neighbors that it felt remote, and we were surrounded by nature. We’d often see the bald eagles circling and once in a while see one flying home to their nest with a fish in their talons, or skimming the glass like surface of the water. All in all a very peaceful place to be.One day we had a very different experience with the bald eagles. It was a quiet morning and we heard a commotion out on the deck (the top story of the house had a deck that hung out over the hill), so we all hurried to see what was going on. When we got to the window, we were amazed to see a bald eagle flapping about on the deck, banging into the window and trying to find his balance. It’s hard to imagine the sheer size of this bird when you see them flying high up in the air. But with six feet of wings he didn’t fit too well on the narrow deck, and after a moment he fell to the ground below.He had been shot. He flapped around for a bit more on the ground below the deck, and eventually died. None of us could understand why anybody would shoot at such a beautiful and protected creature, symbol of our nation, but we could definitely understand why his mate was circling overhead. I don’t know how long she circled overhead, although I’m pretty certain it was over a week. They mate for life and she wasn’t about to give up easily. Her mournful cries echoed overhead as she circled, and it made us all sad and mad.The Forest Service came and collected the body, and I remember my Dad asking them questions about what they would do, and if they would catch the person responsible.  I also remember he wrote a very moving piece about the insanity of the killing in his column called Weaver’s Loom.As a boy in Alaska, I fished almost every day. And most days, I could simply look down in the water, and pick which fish I wanted to catch. So what sort of insanity would make a hunter think that an eagle could even make a dent in schools of fish that number in the thousands. And if the hunter wasn’t just stupid? What if he was a poacher, thinking that he’d get a bald eagle and sell it to some collector for thousands of dollars? Well, at least then we could take some comfort in the fact he didn’t get his prize.