Circle of Life

Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there.  I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight,

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there.  I did not die.

(author unknown)

Three weeks ago today, I found a patch of soft, thick grass lit by New Mexico sunshine, and made a circle.   Lying down in the circle with my head on my arms, I cried the tears of not knowing what was to come, but of understanding that Grandma’s life here was at end.  I cried with grief for all the years I didn’t really know this amazing woman, and with the privilege of understanding that she is a part of me.   I cried for all the moments ahead without her hand to hold; and her voice to hear; and her big, doe eyes gazing gently, but with great intensity, on me.  Eyes that were now blind, but still saw so very much.

After living as an independent woman until just weeks before turning 102, Grandma was quickly making the transition toward the new life awaiting her, a life offered without the limitations of her physical body.  So again, I made my way to her, somehow knowing in my heart that this would be the last time we would share in this physical form.

Despair subsiding, I lifted my head to find a singular leaf, fallen from a nearby cottonwood tree.  This leaf was crackled and brown, fragile with age, and in that moment I felt its circle of life.  How it had once been “fierce energy” before bursting forth as a bud. Then, unfolding into its fullest form, it had danced for a season in the New Mexico wind before dropping in its last days to the ground. It aged to a paper-thin fragility that would in time decompose, becoming one again with the earth.   In time, its energy will again breathe forward with new life, in new form.

It’s this image that helps me remember life that is born, even in death, in so many forms.  Our physical bodies become once again “ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”  Yet our spirits rise to join those we love who have gone before us; to hold the hand of our Maker; and to truly remember again we are always One with the Great Mystery of All That Is.  I do believe that we don’t end.  These beautiful and miraculous physical bodies to which we are born, and in which we live, die.  But we don’t end.  And Love is the connective tissue that keeps us alive; Love is the membrane that holds our souls in relationship one to another… forever.

The poem shared here in this post is one Grandma selected for the service celebrating her life.  As I sat in the family pew of the church she and her husband had made viable and strong, Grandma’s hand was so clearly present in each reading and in every song.   Each spoke to the beauty of the earthly life of hills and pastures; and of the ethereal life of faith and spirit; and, of course, of Love, which is the bridge spanning all.  

The minister talked of Grandma’s unshakable faith, of her inimitable grace, of her ways of “edifying” all with whom she came in contact – her way of lifting others up to a mirror that showed the true glory of their own reflection.   And in that connective tissue of Love in which Grandma brought us all together, many agreed how she had just the right words in certain moments that spoke directly into our hearts.

Grandma’s final words for me in those last days will stay with me forever, for the impact they have made.  When I left her bedside with a kiss she fervently said, “You have been so faithful!”  I believe Grandma was speaking of the loyalty of our connection, and of how I was able to come to her during important times, and to help in the ways I was able to help.   I believe she was speaking of my faith in God.  Though expressed so differently through my life than through hers, a deep faith in what is so much vaster has always bound us together.  And I also wonder if she speaks to a particular kind of faith, made in an unspoken agreement I’m not even sure I knew I had made.  There is faithfulness in the relationship between the two of us, as women who have walked through most of our lives without the added strength of a man walking by our sides.  Somehow, there is a faith in our sympatica spirits; in the empathy of understanding the triumphs and joys, the struggles and sorrows, the freedom and loneliness, of this particular kind of life.

I believe it is that aspect of our connection that often led Grandma to ask after my heart.  A month or so ago, she again inquired about love in my life.   She followed by asking me to remind her of my age.  I replied, “I’m 46, Grandma.”  “Oh, honey!  You are so young!”  I laughed in agreement, then acknowledged my awareness of all the love in my life.  Grandma exclaimed, “Oh yes, honey, you have so much love in your life!  And you have so much more love to come!”

So much love made, so much more love yet to come.

“I love you Grandma.”

“I know you do, honey.  And you know I love you.”

"Yes, I know you do, Grandma.  And it doesn’t end.”

“That’s right, honey.  It never ends.”

May the circle be unbroken.  By and by, Lord.  By and by.

…….

Sarah Dorothy Wolfe Seamster Brawn was born to Oliver and Carrie Wolfe in Boise, Idaho on May 3, 1908.  She was preceded in death by her sister Gertrude and brother Richard.  She graduated from the Sargent Consolidated School in the San Luis Valley in Colorado in 1926.  She received a four year scholarship to Colorado State University.

On February 15, 1928 she married Herbert Seamster.  Two children, James and Marjorie, were born to this union.  Herbert died in 1936.  Dorothy then returned to school and graduated from the Gladys Whithead School of Cosmetology.  She passed the Colorado State Board and had her own shop in Pueblo, Colorado.  It was there that she met James Brawn, a Methodist minister.  They were married November 2, 1937.  In August of 1939 he was sent to Albuquerque to be the minister of the First Methodist Episcopal Church where he served until his retirement.  He died February 26, 1968.

Dorothy has remained a loyal and faithful member all these years.  She was a member of United Methodist Women and Deborah Circle.  She is survived by her son James and his wife Nancy of Gilbert, Arizona; their seven children; their twelve grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren; her daughter Marjorie Ragan; her two daughters; one son-in-law; and one grandchild; and many nieces and nephews.  She is also survived by two of her husband’s grandchildren, Betti Lou Terry and her husband Bob, and their children and grandchildren; and Howard Clinton and his wife Judy Brawn and their children.