Hello,
This is Jacob Watson.
I am continuing to share from my book,
Gifts of Grief,
A Man's Revelations After Sudden Loss.
This is chapter 3,
English Teapot.
I include a period of silent meditation for you to harvest the learnings that you have from your own life.
The English teapot was a small electric teapot that I gave Christine to warm up her Earl Grey tea before yoga.
When I came into the room,
I saw right away the mirror on the door that had her exercise equipment that Christine used to address and heal her frozen shoulder.
And there on the dresser to the left was the English teapot.
I also saw,
Unused,
Now that I had put away her computer,
The cord for her computer.
I noticed it right away because I needed a cord downstairs.
So I took it and used it for my computer.
Standing in her room,
I smiled as I looked around because I noticed that it was dusty.
Time had elapsed and it reminded me that Christine and I used to have a joke about dusting.
She was really good at dusting and I didn't even know what it meant.
Standing there,
I was reminded that after Christine died,
A gift that she gave me was not to watch television anymore,
Particularly football games and the violence and also March Madness,
Watching college basketball.
Even the evening news,
No more television for me and no more sources of news because after Christine died,
She gave me the gift of peace and quiet.
I even turned off the subscription to the daily newspaper.
I looked over at the bookshelf and saw some of Christine's books and that reminded me that another gift was not to be attached to her books or her clothes,
Nothing.
This gift of non-attachment expanded itself into imagining who was going to wear Christine's clothes now.
Her family in Michigan wasn't going to have to see her through a long,
Probably debilitating illness.
Thinking about her,
I was reminded of how the hippie songs used to comfort us and how they were comforting me right now.
Jackson Brown songs,
Bob Dylan songs,
The Pretender,
Forever Young.
I listened to these songs late at night when we used to listen to them.
Now they felt like familiar old friends.
And in addition,
I recognized that listening to them was part of my spiritual practice,
That indeed my spiritual practice was everything that I did.
My daily routines were my spiritual practices,
Including for the first time shopping and cooking for myself.
These gifts were more or less anticipated and yet unexpected,
Unanticipated gifts arose.
Having the upstairs sink replaced and the plumber's helper came downstairs to show me the old sink and there was Christine's name written in black magic marker.
And while I was giving the plumber instructions about installing the new sink,
There up high on the wall were the decorations that Christine had put in the bathroom.
The small wooden house an artist friend had made and the small white rowboat that went with it,
Along with the large ostrich feather.
I was reminded not only of the artistic decorations that Christine had put in the house,
But the many supplies up,
Down,
All around the house for our family.
Some came out only at a particular time of year,
Like her Christmas wrapping paper or her Easter supplies to make bunny rabbits.
That day that I brought the English teapot downstairs to use for myself in the kitchen,
I noticed the radiator again,
The radiator in the front hall that needed painting,
That was calling out to me to be painted over and over again every time I went up and down the stairs.
It was yet another gift from Christine.
So I got out the old paint and I found a brush and they sat there beside the radiator for a couple of days and every time I walked up and down the stairs,
I would see them waiting for me.
Another gift.
Finally,
I took the time and painted the radiator.
It took the whole day because it had lots of surfaces and I had to make sure,
As Christine would have,
That I painted every single one.
Across the hall from the radiator was the hall closet,
The closet that contained Christine's coats and jackets.
This was just like the closets upstairs in the hallway.
For a long time,
I didn't move her clothes from the dresser,
But eventually I did.
To me,
It was like harvesting the gift of space.
I could now move my clothes into her dresser.
Here is some quiet meditation time for you to harvest the gifts that you may experience from listening to these.
These gifts of mine from losing Christine and the grief that followed.
Now,
Please come back slowly and gently from the quiet time to the teachings.
I am remembering that when Christine was here and doing yoga upstairs and I was doing yoga downstairs,
I would occasionally hear a thump as she moved from one posture to another,
And now there was silence.
At first,
I didn't like that.
It was too silent.
And then,
As the days and weeks and months unfolded,
The silence transformed and became nurturing,
And I appreciated the silence.
Christine wasn't there thumping on the floor doing her yoga poses,
But in spirit,
She was there as I was downstairs doing my yoga.
This silence brought me another gift.
As I've said before,
Feelings want only two things,
Acknowledgement and expression.
And if over time they don't have acknowledgement and expression,
They will express physically.
The unexpressed emotions will become an ache or a pain or,
More seriously,
A cancer.
This,
Of course,
Is a continuing gift,
The acknowledgement and the encouragement to express your natural feelings,
Whatever they are,
To find a safe place and,
If need be,
A safe person to express your feelings,
Your natural emotions.
I want to highlight the word encouragement because that's what it takes,
Courage.
May you use these teachings to harvest the gifts of your own life.
