“You don’t love me half as much as I love you” said my dying Granddad as I kissed him good bye tonight. “But where could you possibly fit a love like that in your skinny self?” I asked him. “Oh you just blow up your insides like a balloon and you’ll find some space”, he told me.
So that’s what I am going to do; I’m going to blow up my insides like a balloon. I am going to make myself so available to love that hope and soulful self expression in the aid of love will make the material stretch and stretch so more and more love can expand inside of me. I will be the reflection of infinite love in you.
Melodies still escape from Granddad’s parched lips even as he struggles to grapple with what time or day it is. Some things, like love and music, cannot be got at by even cancer or the morphine required to keep its pain at bay. These are potent things. These are tonics for the soul when it is weary from fighting the fight of life. He can receive a kiss from his wife of 57 years that light up his eyes that were drooping only moments before.
We must protect our basic human right to experience these things. We must live kind lives so we can slip eventually into the unknown with illuminated souls that will light the dark uncertain path that lies ahead. We must learn songs so we can sing them to the dying, and we must live with open hearts so that our voices carry not just words but resonant healing sounds, prayers of peace. We must live lives of service so we can know that each soul deserves a kiss goodnight especially in the darkest hour when they are sweaty and smelly and crying for mercy. We must give pieces of ourselves away each time we give and be unafraid that we will run out. We are infinite if we believe it to be true. We must support the lovers, the carers, the artists, the innovators, the healers and those who contribute in little and big ways to the quality of the lives of others.
We hang here by a thread. Our mere existence is miraculous. If I was ever searching for the result of unraveling the miraculous it would be that: to be is to be miraculous and to be miraculous is to be god.
Granddad, may you fall gently into a soft night. Your blend of softness and strength has helped me to recognize what a good man is and your sweetness and spice has taught me the joy that is living. May I honour you everyday as I reach to be me as much as you are so authentically you. And for every breath you have left in your perfect human incarnation, may the love that surrounds you be a healing balm when the daggers in your bones start their work.
Blessings be to the sick and prayers of strength to the people that care for them.
And for the young, for the vibrant and very much alive: may we know our true power, may we meditate on death in order to understand without fear the delicious temporal gift of life.
I burn to know a love like yours Granddad. Thank you for being my teacher, I can’t wait to kiss you tomorrow.
