A Tender Heart

The purple rose Tim and I saved last year is thriving in a pot on our back porch, and this is her first bloom this year.

Before the start of a service under tragic circumstances, the funeral director’s team and I had arrived early. Once everything was ready, we stood outside, talking gently. Teamwork in the preceding weeks was strong, and our family was wrapped in much love and care, as we all did our best for them. Our hearts hold the hope that even though we can’t change what has happened, thoughtful choices, loving touches and doing all we practically can, will hopefully help to ease their pain a little.

It is hard to find any kind of stillness with intense emotional pain. Kind actions from those who hold empathy can create a little room around the pain and resulting feelings. A quiet between the loud heartbeats, that offers some respite for those who are in grief, to discover their way. Making their choices in their own time.

Our hearts were tender for them all, and this tenderness has woven into the tapestry of our days.

As we talked gently in the mid-morning sunshine, we shared how things have been unfolding for us all. A new awareness is rising, and we are seeing some situations and people in a different light.

Some have been a shock.

What we have seen can’t be unseen.

What we have discovered is the beginning of a new truth. A new way of being.

We are all the keepers of others’ stories, so it was not necessary to share any details, yet we all held an understanding that our experiences of seeing this new knowing were shared.

It went quiet for a few moments, and I commented that the feeling some of these shocks caused was akin to grief. We felt a loss for how things had been or how we thought they were.

Our tender hearts had tried to explain others’ choices and find reasons for the situations that had arisen. Yet, our inner wisdom was gently whispering that what we were witnessing was the bare, unvarnished truth, with all pretence and masks stripped away. We had new choices to make.

Our grief was asking us to gracefully accept. When we’re ready and in our way.

Loving grace. 🩷

I sat talking to a lovely lady at a recent gathering, and she shared how ill she had been over the past few years. She is now fully recovered, yet still managing her feelings from the experience. I asked her what she finds hardest. Her reply gave us both pause. All her professional and family life, she thought she was in control. That control was her security. She felt her body had turned on her, and she’d lost all control. Vulnerability came to visit and then take up residence, and that made her feel angry.

We sat for a while in silence.

Then I said, ‘The only thing we can control is how we react.’

‘Really?’ She looked surprised.

‘That is what I believe. If we can gift ourselves some quiet, some stillness, even if it’s only a few seconds. We have time to choose, which in itself is a choice.’

🩷