Thanks to my spiritual director for helping me to think about how I might take-leave of the home where my parents lived since 1986. What ritual(s) might be appropriate? Six months of hard clearing-out work completed, I walked through an empty shell of the place I moved to when I was fourteen, newly fused (spinal fusion due to scoliosis), wearing a 30-lb body cast and still following 90-days of bed-rest. In my bedroom I discovered a small set of chimes, a symbol of the hope I held in my teenage years that I would find a love “somewhere out there” (which was a popular song at the time). I removed the chimes from their silent hanging place, and moved them through the rooms of our home, praying for healing and wholeness and blessing the space for the next family. I stood in the dining room where we perennially ate large meals Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and Easter Day, all prepared and cleaned-up by my mother. It pleases me to know that the next family will share large meals more regularly in the dining and living rooms and will also share responsibilities in the kitchen. I sat on the fireplace ledge and remembered the not-so-merry-Christmas-mornings I opened a flow of gifts that couldn’t fill or replace my need for simple shared moments of intimacy with my mom (who’d become hardened by years of a neglected marriage). I prayed for a spirit of healing and joy to fill the space and hearts present and passed-on.
Moving forward with a listening heart,
vision, inquiry, and action,
~ Mary