Heavy Doesn't Have To Be "Heavy"

The following post came across my twitter feed today, and it set me to thinking about the overall tenor of my blog posts and my realitity as I chronicle my mom's losing battle with cancer. I must admit that I have difficulty finding even brief moments of levity in the slow, excruciating loss of my mom. At times, the weight of caring for her, helping my dad, and being an oldest brother to my siblings in all of this feels too much to bear.

In light of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Debra Dotter Blakely shared the poem "Heavy" by poet Mary Oliver. Kelly Gallagher shared this post in his Twitter feed, and after reading the poem I thought about the incredible weight I have carried around with me these last seven weeks.

Take a look at the poem, and then I'll talk about how it caused me to consider how I "bend at the weight."

Heavy

That time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hands in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -

books, bricks, grief -

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

also troubled -

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves,

a love

to which there is no reply?

Oliver writes, "till, I was bent/ and my laughter,/ as the poet said,/ was nowhere to be found." These past few weeks, I have allowed my worry and my desire to help my mom and dad suffocate me. Loaded with the overwhelming burden of my mom's inevitable death, I have "bent" before the task of relieving their pain. When faced with a great task, many refer to the wisdom that "By the hands of many a great work is made light."

The poet seemingly contends that when faced with bearing this unbearable weight alone, "It's not the weight you carry/ but how you carry it -/ books, bricks, grief -/ it's all in the way/ you embrace it, balance it, carry it/ when you cannot and would not,/ put it down." I have felt such a sense of grief and foreboding since learning my mom had little time to live that I have not "embraced" or even tried to "balance" the weight that I definitely "cannot and would not" put down.

"So I went practicing."

So I went practicing, and when I did, I remembered. Last week, my mom and dad and I found humor in some topic we were discussing. I honestly cannot remember the specific topic, but my dad yelled out, "Jeff! Now you made her water come out her nose." I turned the corner to see my mom laughing hysterically. THAT was my mom. I nearly missed it because I "cannot and would not put it down."

Now that my mom's cancer is Cancer, I must "linger/ to admire, admire, admire/ the things of this world/ that are kind, and maybe/ also troubled." If not, what is "heavy" will most assuredly crush me.

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