Healing My Heart

My friend and neighbor to the east asked what the purpose of my trip was. Surely more than to mow! I started listing the things I hoped to accomplish. Our conversation tangented, as it often does. It came to me yesterday that one of the big reasons I spend time here is that it heals my heart.

I wasn’t able to mourn my father’s death in the traditional sense. My mother needed immediate, intense, and constant help and supervision upon his passing. Mom died during lock-down, and then I was instantly bullied by my employer, followed by a family health crisis. We have yet to have any kind of memorial gathering for either of them. At least an obit was published for dad in his college magazine, not without a major effort by his former wife. I’ve written mom’s and it remains as a draft document in my email. Their ashes sit in a shelf.

With all the above undone (despite the completion of all the legal that comes along with someone’s passing), the ‘doing’ here on the property helps me have some sort of completion until I can work on what seem to be the social graces of death, which my parents do deserve.