Life Is Not a Puzzle, It Is A Tapestry
Thoughts on life two years after the death of Jen's son, Dawson.
Today marks two years since Dawson White's death. He was 18 at the time, had just started his dream job the day before, and was making plans for his future. I have thousands of photos of him that I took over his 18 short years, but the photo that I based this drawing on, is by far one of my favorites. For me, this photo shows his true spirit - love for life, mischievous, silly, loving, playful, rule "tester", unique, and grounded. To say I miss him, that I grieve him everyday, doesn't even come close to the depth of loss I feel. Everyday has been a struggle that has yet to get "easier." Yet when I look at his photos, this photo in particular, I can't help but feel the spirit of his life reaching into my heart to give it a little squeeze that brings me back to life again.
The past two years has been about trying to put the shattered pieces of my life back together again. To figure out where all these thousands of pieces of the puzzle fit. Some just do not seem to even be a part of the puzzle. I can't find a place for them.
It dawned on me yesterday that perhaps I am trying to put a puzzle together that just doesn't exist anymore. I am grasping on to pieces so tightly that my entire body aches from the strain of the grip. Living with grief is being in a state of living in the past, the present which seems impossible, and a future that is unimaginable, and it is maddening.
Today I woke up, as I do everyday, with him on my mind. However, today is different. As strange as it seems to say, today I am not mourning him. I am not dwelling on the past, and the present no longer seems impossible. I now realize why life granted me that little moment in the park with him climbing on a tree and sticking his tongue out at me. The little squeeze of my heart now feels like an electric shock, not from grief but from the lesson of my greatest teacher...love, laugh, be silly, test all rules and only follow the ones that are true to myself and my heart, be joyfully curious about everything and everyone, be unique, speak honestly without fear, allow life to move me, feel all the "feels", create the life I want, be with the people I want to be with, and by all means, live awake.
The puzzle pieces will never fit. The puzzle is not meant to be put back together. That is because life is not a puzzle, it is a tapestry that is forever being woven by moments in time of our spiritual existence.
As a human, this is nearly impossible to grasp. We agonize, lamient, and assign meaning to events to further agonize and lamient over. However, our job as spiritual beings in a human existence is not to assign meaning to events. As spiritual beings, our tapestry is actually a beautiful mandala of rich experiences that serves to soften us to life, to one another, and to the mysteries of the universe. What I have experienced in the past, this week, will experience today and beyond, should not be interpreted, diagnosed, explained, or assigned to "meaning." That is my human existence trying to create puzzle pieces to a puzzle that doesn't exist.
Instead, I want to strive to live into my tapestry in which my spirit remains forever connected to the beautiful spirit of my son, my soul softens to those around me, and my heart opens to the gifts that remain in front of me.