Poem for a Friday

The Daughter, who is in medical school, shared a poem with me. Which had been read aloud during class by one of her doctor/professors (which gives me such hope for the future of health care, that young physicians are turning to poetry as well as science as they study the healing arts) and which spoke to us after losing our dear dog yesterday.

The Daughter’s had quite the week. She held a human heart in her hands for the first time. She spent hours in the ICU (and emerged declaring that “Nurses run the world”) learning about patients who are there for 36 hours and others who are there for three months. She made time to call her mom and ask how I was feeling after wrapping my arms around Frisbee and watching her die. She processed her own feelings of loss. Frisbee was her childhood dog. Their childhood dog. Our family dog. Yesterday, as Frisbee slipped out of this world, we all held hands via phone and text: my husband on a business trip to North Carolina; our son from Los Angeles; our daughter in New Hampshire. 

It’s hard to lean into suffering. It’s hard to see pain as anything but the Awful that it is, the great interrupter of “normal” life, the barrier between the simple things we want to accomplish or the person we want to be. It’s hard to recognize the opportunity for light and learning and redemption in the midst of pain, whether that’s physical or emotional pain. I know when I’ve been in it, I’ve only had the capacity to thrash, barely keeping my head above it.  

This morning, a friend called and invited me over for a warm fire in the wood stove and tea. She lost her dog several years ago and woke this morning knowing how empty our home would feel today, the first day without our dog’s constant, loving presence. No sooner was I off the phone than another friend called from Vermont: she’s lost three dogs. She knows what that quiet house feels like.

Nothing takes away the sadness we feel, but what a light these calls have been! 

Here’s the poem. How amazing that something written in the 13th century by a man who lived in the part of the world we now call Afghanistan, so far from my cold little corner of what we’re currently calling Brunswick, Maine (formerly Massachusetts; I have no idea what the Abenaki and Penobscot people called it) could tap me on the shoulder and speak to me this morning. But there you have it.

Backpain

by Rumi

Muhammad went to visit a sick friend.

Such kindness brings more kindness,

and there is no knowing the proliferation from there.

The man was about to die.

Muhammad put his face close and kissed him.

His friend began to revive.

Muhammad's visit re-created him.

He began to feel grateful for an illness

that brought such light.

And also for the backpain

that wakes him in the night.

No need to snore away like a buffalo

when this wonder is walking the world.

There are values in pain that are difficult

to see without the presence of a guest.

Don't complain about autumn.

Walk with grief like a good friend.

Listen to what he says.

Sometimes the cold and dark of a cave

give the opening we most want