Linda’s Gift
They say that I am dying but I am not going away. Where could I go? I am here.
Ramana Maharshi
It’s a beautiful Maui day. I’m near the end of a long hike in Makawao Forest with my two dogs, enjoying the sweet smell of the eucalyptus trees, the soft air, and the distant view of the ocean. I’m relaxed and at peace. Suddenly I stop dead in my tracks, hit by a stunning realization. A few hours earlier I was weeping uncontrollably as I wrote about the death of my wife Linda. What’s the difference between then and now?
As I wrote about the trauma of her sudden death just three weeks ago, my emotions were raw. I had lost my love of twenty years. We had spent almost every hour of every day together and couldn’t bear to be apart from each other. Even through her long illness, our love was fresh in every moment. Now there would be no more times of sitting on the couch, laughing over some TV program we were watching, no more hugs when she got up in the morning, no more happy times of petting the dogs together. I cry my heart out, wailing, sobbing, and soaking up a dozen Kleenexes. I feel like I am being torn to shreds. Her physical form is gone forever, and an enormous chasm separates us. This is the story I tell myself, and I realize, this is suffering.
And now, walking in the woods with the dogs, I am totally joyous. My mind is quiet and free of thoughts. All there is is pure awareness, and in that place Linda is right here with me. How could she not be? It’s as if she is seeing through my eyes, hearing through my ears, smelling through my nose. There is no separation between us, because who “Linda” is (and who all of us are), is Spirit, Source, or God.
This morning, writing about Linda, I was totally identified with the story of her being dead and that I’ll never see her again, which on one level is true. But it is also a “story” created by my thoughts. Do I want to stay in that story and go on suffering, or do I choose to bring my attention to this moment right here, right now? Breath in, breath out. This is all there is. This is it.
There’s nothing wrong with having a “story” about Linda dying; in fact I celebrate letting the grief come up and move through. I only have a problem if I cling on to the story or indulge in it. That’s when there is unnecessary suffering. I have a choice—I can continue to feel abandoned and alone, or I can relax into unconditional awareness, knowing that this “Linda” is right here. All that keeps me from this joy is my thoughts. As Byron Katie so wisely says, “I am the cause of my own suffering—but only all of it.”
Wow. After the terrible trauma of abandonment when my mother died when I was twelve, and then my first wife Fran dying twenty years ago—and now once again experiencing loss—I’m finally seeing that the end of the physical body does not mean annihilation and separation. In fact, Linda is more present to me now then she was during the many days she was in terrible pain. And so is my mother, Fran . . . and everyone else I have ever loved.
What stopped me in the forest was the stunning recognition that I have been given an incredible gift. I know that what I came into this life to work out is my core issue of abandonment—and until this very moment, it had eluded me.
This is Linda’s gift to me. What a gift.