Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

May 19, 2006

Now onto the good stuff!

Today’s Mother’s Day Stories

~**~**~

It is April 17th as I write. One year ago today my dear friend of thirty years slipped away from this life, just four months after being diagnosed with an aggressive leukaemia. I write this to honour her memory and to allow the love I feel for her and her family to flow out into this world where there is such need of love. I also write in the hope that those who share this journey do not feel quite so alone.

Maria Doherty

For Deborah  

Maria Doherty

How do I even begin to describe Deborah. Although she was only 52 when she died, I always see her in my mind as the 17 year old girl she was when we first met. We talk of some people as being

forces of nature, untamed, possessing something elemental about  their spirits. Such was Deborah.

Deborah was my first encounter with the citizens of the USA. She  and her family, mother and brother, had come over from New York,  in part because of her mother's growing anxiety about the spread of drugs in the public school system. It is ironic to think how short a time it took for the problem to spread here to the United Kingdom, but out of that flight came my friendship with Deborah and the loving relationship with her family. As a mother of a 15 year old son, I now fully understand both the anxiety and courage of her mother as she settled, almost penniless in a strange land with no loving partner for support. It is clear that Deborah inherited her mother's strength of

character.

I always had this picture of Deborah as a pioneer woman. I could see her on the deck of a pitching, tossing schooner, bound for Boston. I could see her sitting up on a wagon, crossing the Badlands, bound for new unexplored territories. She had this air about her that defied definition, a creature from another world in the Oxford of the seventies. From the first moment she came striding down the High, dressed in her hiking boots, cords and oversized plaid shirt, she had my attention. From the moment she beamed that great lopsided grin in my direction,

she had my heart.

Her little family struggled financially and yet they were so open hearted, so generous to all who entered their home. There always seemed to be enough for another few people at their table. I ate my first Thanksgiving Dinner with them and owe a life long addiction to Pumpkin Pie to that happy occasion.

These were people who would never walk by on the other side when someone needed help. They came to be my refuge, the hearth round which I warmed myself when the world become too cold and lonely for a young girl living away from home for the first time. When that world seemed to rock around me they gave me solid ground to walk on. I doubt if they were even aware of the impact they had on people. They just did what came naturally to them.

Deborah's heart was a big as that one sided grin. She was beautiful and almost every young man of our acquaintance fell for her. You could never be jealous of her, never be angry with her. That grin would not allow it. There was just something so alive, so open, so different about her. She drew men to her without any awareness or conceit. She had the palest of white skins, the alabaster skin of fairy tales. Deborah shone with a translucence that was both spiritual and physical. She was my friend and I loved her. I always will.

Life was not easy for Deborah. She faced challenges that would have destroyed a lesser spirit, and yet she came through with a loving heart and a kind of rough edged innocence, unspoiled by her experiences. We who had the privilege to love her were so happy when a few years ago she found a good man to love and be loved by. In her last months he brought her peace. It must have been so hard for him and for her children to say goodbye. Doubly so when she had finally reached

the safe harbour which had eluded her so painfully. I am forever grateful  that she knew what it was to love and be loved as she deserved. 

Deborah fought hard against her illness and all across the world friends and strangers alike joined in prayer and healing meditations. She wanted so much to live, to be there for her children, particularly the younger ones still dependent on their mother for her love and daily care. It was not to be and a year ago she slipped into a coma, her body too wounded from the struggle with leukaemia and the damage done by the chemotherapy. Within a day she was gone.

Deborah's death hit me harder than I could ever have imagined. She was the first of my friends, the first of my age group, to die. I struggled with my emotions for several months, seeking to find my equilibrium once again,  living with that whole torturous range of feelings that are the hallmarks of the path of grieving. I wrote two poems during that period and they are a clear expression of that  path. I hope that they may be of help to others who face the same journey.

Today there is still lingering sadness, sometimes traces of anger at the fate which took her so unwilling from us. The anger is rare now and the sadness no longer overwhelms the sense of profound gratitude I have for having  known and loved her. Life did not give her a choice. The only choice we  have is whether we let the anger win or the love. It is not an easy journey and

one which is so much harder for her family. She made a huge impact on so many of us. She will never be forgotten.

As I look at the first tiny white buds on the damson tree, opening to the long delayed spring sunshine, I am aware of a smile creeping across my  face. The memories I have are good ones; the feeling that I have is one of love. I am grateful to have known Deborah, grateful to have been her

friend. Whatever time we had was what we had. We had no power to  hold back death. We had the power to care, to love, to cherish. Even now although I will not hear her voice or see her face again, I hold her in my heart and wherever the essence of who she is might now be, I know that her love is unchanging. What else could I ask for?

Grief is a journey. It is not an easy one and it can be a long one. I am blessed that mine has been one which has given me as much as it has  taken, perhaps more. I sit here wrapped in a gentle peace that comes  from the knowing that love does not die, that the connection continues beyond the death of the body. I may not have her physical presence in  my life any more, but I have her safe in my heart. Yes, it still hurts. Yes there are still raw places. Yet, I am grateful and I am at peace.

~**~**~

Mother’s Day Poetry Section

~**~**~

This first poem was written in the first month, following her death.

For Deborah

Maria Doherty

You are gone.

A meteor blazing your trail

Across the dark sky of my soul,

Where you journey to

Lies beyond my understanding

My soul may know the way.

You are free,

Like an eagle’s soaring spirit,

Released from earthly bounds

You leave behind your pain,

Your sorrows and your burdens,

Help me not to take them on.

I am so weary,

Drained by the leach of sadness

Sucking on my bones until they ache

With longing and with grief.

This cavernous sense of loss.

Who is it that I cry for?

It hurts so much.

I feel like a soft toy gouged open,

Stuffing knocked out of me.

Leaving me limp and flat.

An empty body whose soul has fled

Did it leave with you?

I want to let go,

I want to soar above the earth with you,

To lay my sorrows down and be pure spirit

Yet life calls me powerfully,

Love holds me to this earth.

In this parting of our ways.

I have a life to live,

A designated path to keep ,

People who are depending on me

To pull rabbits from hats and walk high wire,

While simultaneously being

The still, calm centre of their universe.

And still it hurts too much,

Pain gnaws upon my thoughts.

I don't want to play this game of grief.

Can I stop it now, curl into a foetal ball,

Wrapped in the comfort of my mother,

And heal my bleeding heart.

I feel tainted by this anger,

Filled with rage against your dying.

You fought so hard to stay with us,

To live out the sweetness of your days,

For one more gentle touch,

For one more night of love.

I wish that  I could cry,

To wash away the bitter thoughts,

Excise the corrosion of this misery,

To feel the touch of joy upon my soul,

To live the happiness you longed for,

This precious gift of life.

And this too shall pass,

As all dark nights creep into dawn,

Golden fingers stretching out

Across the blackened sky ,

Nudging us awake from our bad dreams,

To see the light of day again.

~**~**~

This came a few months later.

The Chrysalis of Death

Shedding the empty chrysalis,
Her spirit flies free,
Forever transformed
In the alchemy of the Light.

Energetic shifts blossom,
As the breath slowly stops
Heart surrenders its last beat,
In this final dance of death.

And there is so much sadness
In this mystical transmutation,
Dark magic of death's eternal spiral
Progression of life's seasons.

Clouds cast fleeting shadows,
Rain drenching me with tears,
Then comes the Rainbow blessing,
Prismatic promise of new life.

Courage is birthed from the womb,
Of this bitter transformation,
I feel the anguished pain of loss,
Exquisite knowing of eternity.

********************************************

Maria Stepek Doherty
Chrysalis Transformations
where caterpillars find their wings

~**~**~

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