UP, Up, and AWAY !

Oliver Sacks wrote, in his beautiful  little book GRATITUDE,” There will be no one like us when we are gone, but there is no one like us, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate-the genetic and neural fate—of every human being to be unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”

 

I read this about a week ago while still in emotional mourning for my dear friend of 50 years, who passed away recently, to whom I had been sending this weekly blog. This morning I read an email from my father-in-law, a recently retired medical doctor, (less than once a year does his name show up on our inbox).

It gave meticulous medical details of my mother-in-law’s near deadly weakened condition in the critical care unit of their local hospital in Maine. My mind swiftly returned to the Oliver Sacks’ quote. My husband and I took off for our regular Yoga practice with this knowledge in my head, and of which he yet remained ignorant.

 We arrived to find a new visiting teacher who gave a great class, and who had a very special manner of relaxed presentation. This is an awkward statement, since the whole purpose of Yoga is to relax every part of your body and mind! Sometimes though, the concept is translated into words, the right words, but the feeling is oblique. The teacher was visiting from Austria, and gave the class in English.

My husband took the news gracefully and with sparse emotion. I, however, was feeling ill at ease. They have not been close for a very long time now. I barely had a relationship with her, not for lack of trying.

This comes at a time when we expect to have a number of visitors during this week, all from various locations. There is also a planned delivery of our some of our furniture left behind in Tiberias two and a half years ago.

Death rings an echo for me, no matter to whom it pertains at this juncture in my life .A beckoning echo, a shrill echo, a tiresome echo, almost a screech!

In order for life to be repetitive, death must occur. All we can hope for is to be remembered.

Oliver’s quote came out of a recent book by Dylan Jones: DAVID BOWIE: A LIFE

I hear the sound of a metronome daily. There is no piano, however.

Up, up, and away!  To be remembered-------recalled-refound.

Love that which is alive, MISS RHEINGOLD