I knew your departure was looming thanks to the warning you gave me a few nights before you crossed over last Saturday, but I'd hoped you'd be wrong. We've grown so much closer over the past few months. I wasn't ready to let you go.
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| Photo by Wendy Colucci - www.clickshootingstars.com |
"No matter what happens, always remember to just be," you said, stretching your wiggly little nose up to touch my lip. "You want to be happy? Don't try to be happy."
"I'm not sure I understand," I confessed. "Of course I want to try to be happy."
"But happiness is your true way of being. Anything else is just resistance. If you stop fighting, you'll just settle in where you're supposed to be. If you have to try, then you're not where you're supposed to be yet."
That is what you've been teaching me all along, isn't it? The boundaries you upheld around others weren't for protecting yourself from others' impositions, until you were one day ready to tear them down like I'd assumed had been the case. Your boundaries were aimed at honoring your needs and desires at any given moment. And needs and desires are meant to be fluid, not static.
You never fell into the habit of acting as you should have and feeling guilty whenever you didn't, the way that I so often do. You were just you--sometimes you wanted company and other times you wanted to be left the heck alone. Sometimes you were calm and content, and other times you were irritated, and other times you were downright bitchy.
But I now see how your happiness was always a constant. Whatever negativity I associated with some of your behaviors and moods were merely my own ascriptions. You never judged yourself for not playing nice with others who clearly weren't respecting you. You weren't consumed at all by what anyone thought about you, whether you were sweet and lovey dovey or begrudgingly perturbed.
No wonder you didn't have to try to be happy. You didn't have to spend hundreds of dollars on self-help books and personal development seminars and convince yourself you were doomed to a life of misery whenever fear or anger crept in. You didn't have to do anything. And you certainly didn't have to stay in this plane when you longed to be with your best friend who'd already made the journey beyond.
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| Photo by Wendy Colucci - www.clickshootingstars.com |
Although I'd thought George was my designated "love" teacher, your guidance was equally important. You showed me how to stop trying to force and control every relational aspect I could and to instead just let go and live in my heart. You reassured me that doing so didn't mean I was too soft or incapable of taking care of myself.
I suppose that because I've taken steps toward embracing these lessons (and the rainbow of emotions that comes with them), I no longer need you here to help me. But that isn't to say I won't miss that saucy personality of yours that never withheld an opinion to my aid.
Thanks for everything, my favorite Chocolate Bunny. Even the tooth-lashings.
I'll see you and Georgie in that wide, open, grassy meadow on the other side.
Love always,
Jill
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| Photo by Wendy Colucci - www.clickshootingstars.com |
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