Sober Up

The moment when you realize through your grief that losing a loved one is not about you is quite sobering...even if you're stone cold drunk when it hits you.

Sober. Quite suddenly.

No, it's not about you begging the spirits of the departed to return in a ghostly form in front of you (at 3am as you get up to pee) and beg them to bestow their forgiveness upon you for all the crappy things you did or said to them while they were alive. 

It's not about you damning them to hell for never owning up to some lie they went to their grave letting you believe, either...watching you twist in the wind in your guilt and never letting you off the hook.

It's not about you not knowing how to maintain or honor your loved one's wishes when he refused to deal with getting his affairs in order before his last days.

It's not about what it feels like for you when the workers come in to tear down lovingly built walls, tear up carpets, rip out intricately installed wiring, pull out moldings, throw away classic light fixtures and wash over every trace of your beloved's personality in a harsh, cold white, paint. 

And it's not going to be about you the first time you allow some other currently-breathing carcass into his newly white-washed home, to show the place to a potential new resident and tell him or her stoically that he transitioned there. Yes, there. Right in that room. And by the way, you're inheriting an evil black cat if you move in. Boogeda boogeda boogeda!

Rather...it always has been and should be about him and his glorious new existence. He who is too busy being free and whole in mind, spirit and body to have time to come back to deal with you in a less-than-fabulous specter-esque form just to give you permission to quit feeling sorry for yourself. He does not care of the things of this world any longer and would frankly have little patience for the fact that you do. 

He just might, however, come back long enough to terrify you into soiling yourself a little if an Archangel should get word to him about what's been going down with Suzie Sadsack back on Earth. No doubt he'd get a giggle out of that, but soon enough he'd be frantic that curtain is in five and you're making him late. 

Sober up. Not about you. His death...about HIM. Not you. HIM. And he's alive and full of light and racing around on fully developed legs and gorging his eyes with every delicious color and shape ever Created, now available to him with 20/20 vision. The joy you should feel by simply imagining what he is seeing, feeling and experiencing for the first time in 47 years should be enough for you to let your insignificant guilt go. Let. it. go. He doesn't care about your guilt, as he shouldn't. He does NOT care. There is now way too much living and celebrating and preparing for his next journey to do, too many more hearts that need to collide with his, too many stages to light, too many canvases to paint, too many beings' lives to touch in the next realm, because it's HIS death...and NOT YOURS. Absolutely. not. yours.

Let him have his death...because guaranteed, he wants you to have your life. Sober up.

For M.M.H. ♥