Yesterday, I came to the last page of a journal I started on October 12, 2023. I have been keeping a journal since January 1973 — 52 years — and in February 2010 made the decision to stick with a specific kind of journal: a 5 x 8.25-inch, black hard-cover grid notebook, graph ruled with 240 pages.
My habit has been to write out or affix a quote and/or poem that I would see every time I opened the journal. In my first 2010 grid notebook journal, I wrote out Psalm 130; 5-6:
Journals reveal much — the good, the bad and the ugly. They also function as stepping stones and sign posts, showing the way. Out of curiosity, I randomly picked out one of the journals pictured above and then randomly opened it. I landed on Thursday, May 26, 2011, and the entry was about Gwendolyn, my beloved poet friend who had been diagnosed with aggressive ovarian cancer. She had learned two days earlier that she had at the most six more months to live. I copied by hand what she wrote to me:
I just don’t know how to do this dying thing. Now everything I do may be the last time I ever do it. And I have to say goodbye to everything and for me, inanimate objects are as sentient as people. I read that once I cross over, I am connected to us all again, and I hope that will be the case. I mostly worry about causing pain in the grief to all who love me. I thought I would outlive you all. Not the case.
I cry a lot.
In a subsequent email, Gwendolyn wrote to her beloveds: “I am going to try to finish my book and finish getting my affairs in order. I want to thank you for your support and love, because in the end, love is all that matters.”
Gwendolyn died within a month.
No, life does not get any easier, and it is not an onslaught as much as it is a test of endurance and grace. Gwendolyn taught me this, and she also inspired the poem I chose to open my latest journal (see below) after reading my journal entries from May and June 2011 yesterday. Thank you, dear Gwendolyn. Continue to rest in peace. I’ll see you on the other side, and together, we will watch for the dawn.
I believe that it is somehow providential that my random journal entry was about the death of my dear friend, Gwendolyn. Two weeks ago I learned that another beloved — one that I have known since August 1973 and who was at one time a surrogate mother to me — entered hospice. She had been diagnosed with endometrial cancer in July 2022. Between my fury and sadness, I pray for her. She was the first person in my life to point out Psalm 130. Verses 5 and 6 of that Psalm (the New Revised Standard translation) remain my favorite:
I wait for the Lord; my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
Even though we knew it was imminent, after my dad died I could hardly go on. I remember talking to my sister on the phone the next week and telling her that I was extremely depressed. “Yes, we’re all grieving dad,” she said, “but is there another reason you’re depressed?” “Well it hit me today,” I said, “that everyone we love will die one by one until we die.” There was a brief silence and then she said “Now I’m depressed.” That made me laugh out loud. A terrible truth shared. I remember when Gwen died and what a great loss that was. It’s such a hard thing as a human to bear, loss after loss. Heartbreak upon heartbreak. It’s the nature of life, as awful as it is. It doesn’t get easier or less painful. I wish I had some deep wisdom or a comforting thought. I do love you big big and I hear you and the cracking of your huge heart.
Oh, Neola, we both have endured heartbreak upon heartbreak, but our hearts are indeed still intact. I am grateful for that because more, less bearable losses are on the horizon.
And you do have deep wisdom and comforting thoughts because your heart has been broken so many times. Is this the price of wisdom? Hate it.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE you.
(The exchange with your sister made me laugh, too, by the way.)
Glad to make you laugh. I think it’s not easy being my sister. Hey sis, I love you so much too 💜