Hello,
This is Jacob Watson,
And I am sharing from my book,
Gifts of Grief,
A Man's Revelations After Sudden Loss.
This is Chapter Six,
Cellar Candlelight.
After some teaching,
I offer a three-minute period for your quiet meditation time to reflect on what you have been hearing.
And further deepen the experiences from your own life.
Several months after Christine died,
As the temperatures dropped and winter came on,
I looked out my window one evening and saw my neighbor's house next door,
About 20 feet away.
And there,
In his cellar window,
Was a candle,
Just at the eye level.
I blinked,
But it was still there,
And it had not been there before.
But now it was,
A single candlelight in the cellar window.
The candlelight in the cellar window next door was my neighbor's way of expressing his love and support for me,
And for Christine.
It reminded me that I do have a lot of friends.
Christine was the quiet one in the relationship.
I was the extrovert,
And created a lot of friendships.
Certainly,
These friendships were gifts.
However,
There were a lot of times that I wanted to be alone.
I wanted to experience the feelings of grief.
I did have a lot of friends,
And those friends required management.
I had to text them,
Or call them,
And arrange to meet them.
Gradually,
I learned to create a balance.
Of course,
Sometimes friends showed up,
Unexpectedly.
I was painting the foundation around the house,
Which involved clearing away the pebbles,
And then sanding and painting.
On a hot summer's day,
I was hard at work,
And a neighbor came over across the street,
Concerned that I was getting sunburned,
And she brought me sun lotion.
It was a compassionate and kind thing for her to do.
It was a real gift,
And I was very grateful.
Around this time,
I began having dreams that Christine left me for another man,
And I would wake up angry.
In the process of waking up,
I remembered,
Oh,
She didn't leave me for another man.
She died.
She never left me for another man,
And she never would.
Somehow,
That was a great relief to me,
And reminded me that we were always together,
And we will always be together.
A great gift.
I needn't worry.
I was in a safe place,
And I would always be in a safe place.
This reminded me that my whole life,
I have been creating safe places for people to have their natural emotions.
All of the places that I had helped start—the Summerhill School,
Collinsbrook,
The Center for Grieving Children,
And the Interfaith Chaplaincy Institute of Maine—provided safe places,
Both physically and emotionally,
For people to express their natural feelings.
It was as if Christine,
In her life and in her death,
Was giving me the opportunity to see this from a larger perspective.
Christine also gave me tangible gifts—gifts that I still have and use almost every day.
One example is the table saw in the cellar.
Another is the specially designed wooden cabinet where I keep my spiritual tools.
Christine had it specially designed to hold my incense and my singing bowls—things that she knew needed a special place.
Of course,
Some were more practical,
Like the Weber charcoal grill and the snowblower to clear the driveway of snow in the winter.
These tangible gifts of Christine live on.
Another tangible gift from Christine was very different.
It was the proceeds from her life insurance policy.
This allowed me,
As we had planned,
To pay off my children's college tuition loans to my great relief and,
Of course,
To theirs.
It was a gift to me that Christine supported me and welcomed me home every time I went to an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross training and eventually joined their staff.
What I brought home was useful in our counseling practices.
The essential lesson that each of us has to do our own grief work was central to our practices and,
Indeed,
When our own feelings came up,
We knew we had to find a way to express them.
Christine even went to her own Elizabeth Kubler-Ross workshop.
She always welcomed me when I came home from my trainings and workshops,
Whether it was just a weekend or a longer five-day workshop.
Eventually,
When the kids grew up and moved out,
We traveled together.
We went to the Bahamas for a winter's vacation and,
Later,
To Ireland together.
It is a gift to look back on those trips and recall that we took our relationship with us.
Back home,
I go out on the front porch to get the mail and,
Several times a week,
There is a letter or a catalog addressed to Christine,
Which reminds me that somewhere there is her name mailing list.
At first,
I didn't like this because it was a reminder that she wasn't here,
But it was evidence that she was somewhere.
Somebody else knew about her and that was a gift to me.
So instead of rushing to call the company and say,
Take her name off the list,
I relaxed and I welcomed those reminders.
My friends were,
Of course,
Reminders too.
It was a great relief to me to look back,
Remember that it was Christine's dear friend of many years,
They shared a birthday,
Who agreed to do her memorial service.
It was a gift to me that when I had a minor legal problem come up and I didn't want anything to distract me from my feelings of grief,
I asked a neighbor who is an attorney to come over and help me and she showed up the next night.
Sitting on the couch,
She leaned forward and said,
I'll take care of it,
Don't worry.
She was speaking the exact words that I needed and wanted to hear.
I was greatly relieved,
But the feelings of worry didn't go away for a couple of days and I realized that there was another quality to her words.
When she spoke to me and said,
I'll take care of it,
Don't worry,
She was speaking as the divine feminine.
Did she know that?
Probably not,
But I did and it took me a couple of days to understand this,
A much deeper level,
I'll take care of you.
Jacob,
You don't have anything to worry about.
I will take care of you.
This reminder comes up regularly at evening meals when I say grace.
This is a practice that Christine and I instituted for our family and continued after the kids grew up and left.
It's a reminder of the divine feminine saying,
I will take care of you.
Now we'll have some time for quiet meditation.
In this silence,
I'd like you to remember how the universe is taking care of you at this very moment.
I encourage you to breathe deeply as the meditation time opens.
Notice what feelings have come up in this chapter called Cellar Candlelight and how this applies to your own life.
Gently and slowly,
Take a minute to come out of the quiet time.
Please take a minute to honor and digest what you have experienced,
For the quiet time is part of your life.
I have gradually come to see this as a gift,
That life is unexpected,
That if Christine could die,
Then anything can happen.
However,
Having survived this loss,
I can experience any loss.
I can survive any loss.
Reminders of loss show up in large and small ways,
Some expected and some unexpected.
A flyer came from the Portland Museum of Art and there on the cover was Huck Finn in a black and white etching.
It was a visual representation of exactly how I felt at times,
Slumped over in my bereavement.
I immediately hung it up on my wall and then,
Months later,
I naturally threw it away.
It had served its purpose.
I began to feel more in rhythm with things in the comings and goings,
Some expected and some unexpected.
And I found great freedom that I wasn't in charge.
And the freedom itself,
Of course,
Was a great gift.
