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the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: death


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every falling leaf. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

in my son’s first year at lawrence university, i had the joy of visiting the campus fairly often. one of those times there was a comedian on campus and, along with a group of his friends, i went to her show.

it was fall 2011. tig notaro was about 40 then – though she looked way younger. i was 52 or so, not a heck of a lot older. following her bright career for a bit, it was difficult to see her deal with complicated and dangerous medical issues, the abrupt death of her mother, breast cancer, a double mastectomy, relationship breakup.

hundreds – maybe thousands – of shows in the growth of her success later, we watched her on anderson cooper’s – stunning – grief podcast “all there is”.

we stumbled upon this just a few nights ago – after you-tube-ing the news until we could no longer take any more in. anderson was visiting with ken burns and the show was titled, “the half-life of grief is endless“. there is nothing like an honest, open conversation about mortality and loss to draw you in. i repeated the words aloud: “the half-life of grief is endless” before realizing that quote had been – aptly – chosen as the title of that episode.

it feels true – in my opinion. the half-life of grief IS endless. and in that space we inhabit – that space that loss always shields with an impermeable membrane – we find so much meaning, so much life, so much right-now.

though well-acquainted with loss of dear people around her, tig spoke specifically of the loss of her friend, poet andrea gibson. she described the feeling of andrea nearby her. she read bits of her poetry. anderson cried. i cried. i think d cried too.

i never could understand how – when my big brother died – the world could just go on. i wasn’t a child. i was 33 and pregnant with my second child. but i still couldn’t grok it, even as i had lost others in my life, even as I could cognitively understand it. it was a gut-punch, yet i could feel him – wayne – nearby. i could sense his humor, his brilliant mind.

in the love letter that andrea wrote to their fiancée, they wrote “dying is the opposite of leaving…” and in the same, their words, “ask me the altitude of heaven and i will answer ‘how tall are you?'”

i cannot hike in the woods without stopping. there is so much to take in, so much for which to gently hold space, so much to be grateful for. just to see it all…washes over all the grief and enlivens all the grief. both.

and then there is this: “every falling leaf is a tiny kite with a string too small to see, held by the part of me in charge of making beauty out of grief.” (andrea gibson)

*****

LAST I SAW YOU © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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some questions for you. [merely-a-thought monday]

my son shares his name. it’s his middle name. wayne.

it was in the middle of my second pregnancy we lost my vastly-loved big brother. my little girl was two; my little boy not yet arrived. i had lost grandparents before that. but, somehow, despite our sadness in these losses, in their older-age, it seemed a natural part of the life cycle. my brother was different. it was today, 31 years ago. and he was merely 41, which is twenty-three years younger than i am at this moment.

though my brain somehow grasped the details of his cancer, my mind couldn’t wrap itself around how it was possible that the world could go on if he could no longer feel it. i still struggle with this. i am not naive enough to think it all ceases because of one – but the lack of the act of feeling, the passion of feeling, the tactile, the visceral of feeling – all this – it felt – no, feels – inordinately complicated to me. the full-stop. surely, in the moments i ponder this is when i realize how utterly futile it is to try and control anything, to be utterly absorbed in stuffff, to not stop and notice the tiny delicate flowers on the path.

we are reading a book together. though the actual book has nothing at all to do with this post or my brother or pausing on trails in the woods, the title – for me – is relevant: i have some questions for you.

i do, my big brother. i have some questions for you.

i know you know, bro, how adored you always were. did you take it with you? can you feel it on this other plane you are on?

i know you loved coffee ice cream, hot cups of coffee, birthday cake. are your senses as vibrant? did you smell the peonies in our backyard? can you now catch a whiff of the lavender, the mint, the basil? can you feel the sun? are you aware of the breeze – or – are you the breeze itself?

i know you loved to hear neil diamond, loved to play guitar and sing, loved to feel your hands on projects of wood. do you float in and out now, catching snatches of song, feeling the pick in your hand, hearing the scroll saw start up?

i know you loved. are you right here – loving – right now? are you right next to your wife, your beloved children and your grandchildren, and, if we could touch incandescence, the full spectrum of color, translucent gossamer, could we touch you?

i know you are not in a physical form on this earth. but are you simply unseeable? are you, in turn, coffeesitting with our mom and dad and then swooping in to somehow steadfastly drop wisdom or strength onto the rest of us?

i know you probably don’t have any questions. but i do. and, as my big brother, you will need to find a way to answer them, as i am counting on you to explain all this.

i’ll stop – wayne – at the delicate flowers in the woods. i’ll slow down and dance on the deck. i’ll try not to worry about the angst of the day-to-day. i’ll feel and i’ll drop into pause.

there are times i know you are here. there are times i know our sweet momma and poppo are here. i wish it were easier to see you.

in some kind of trust – right smack in the middle of grace and not-knowing – i do believe you are the wind.

*****

you’re the wind ©️ 2005 kerri sherwood

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

ANGEL YOU ARE ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood (this song is not jazz, nor does rumblefish own any portion of the copyright or publishing rights of this song)

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in avant. in après. [merely-a-thought monday]

avant: before.

there is before and there is after. it is with anticipation, maybe thrilled butterflies, maybe jitters, maybe weak knees, maybe even dread we live in before. it is sometimes with relief, sometimes with regret, sometimes with suffering, sometimes with satisfaction, sometimes with contentment we live in after. there is a journey between them – before and after.

there was nothing i could really say to prepare david for the loss of his father. and having lost both my sweet momma and poppo, i had a lot of words to describe it. but there is really nothing you can do when someone is living in before, except be there.

and now that it is after, there is still nothing i can really say to prepare david for the unexpected moments of sadness, grief raining down in a misty fog or pummeling hailstorm, or the unexpected moments of recognition, a glimpse of someone from the other side. even after these years of being-without and all the words in my heart, i can only just simply be there.

après: after.

the neon sign was hanging in the airbnb we took back along the way. we needed the space, not a hotel, to cook our own meals and simply be quiet. and i cannot think of a more timely message.

we are living in après. we are living in avant. both are true. both are real.

they are there too.

we are reminded, once again, for the millionth time – but not the last, to be present in right-now.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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babycat. [two artists tuesday]

his long white whisker was on the black rug in the sunroom. i bent down and picked it up, my heart aching for this sweet adored cat no longer here. i taped it to a piece of colored paper, trying to hold on to babycat physically just a little longer.

b-cat was twelve. according to the almanac that’s about 64. it hadn’t occurred to me or us that he was a senior cat; he was simply our babycat and his presence was more than one-fourth of our home. his absence has made a profound impact; it is very very quiet. it’s not that he was that noisy, although he was a vocal cat. it’s just that he was that present. for each of us.

i was alone last week when it happened. in an unusual turn d was away and i was home. monday was a day of sorting and cleaning and rearranging. babycat spent the day in the same room as me and split his time between snoozing and pets. nothing out of the ordinary, just extraordinarily normal. tuesday morning was unexpected and will break my heart for some time to come. suddenly symptomatic and ultimately laying down behind a chair i never remember him exploring, i knew things were dreadfully wrong. racing babycat in his blanketed dog-crate (since he was too big for cat carriers) to an urgent veterinarian appointment, i spoke to him the entire way while he loudly meowed and i could feel hope leaving my body. there are moments that feel surreal and, like other losses in my life, this was one. over a covid-enforced veterinary facetime app, a very kind and compassionate doctor explained the xray she had immediately taken and the dire implications of all that she could see suddenly impacting our beloved cat. babycat gave us no time to make longer term treatment decisions. he died on that tuesday morning in march, almost twelve years since my life had been graced by him as a kitten. and, in the way that death changes everything, i won’t be the same without him.

i’ve seen bumper stickers with pawprints that read “who rescued who?” each time i nod my head, understanding. babycat came to me at a time of great need. my girl and my boy and i drove to florida to pick up this kitten who had come to stay at my niece’s doorstep, with no evidence of a missing owner. a first-time-cat-family, we drove “cat”, who we were having trouble naming, all the way home, trying to figure out how to feed and water and potty-break a cat on the way, when all our experience was dog-based. somewhere along the way babycat was named “wilson” but he chose to never answer to that and picked “babycat” as his given name. we taught him to sit, to beg, to come when called. he meowed when we said “speak” and was a lot more dog than cat in many ways.

babycat – in the wisdom of the animal kingdom – followed me around in moments of loneliness, insisted on regimented times for meals, showed me that the sun on the rug in the living room was something to soak up, sat with me on the floor. baby-the-c’s constant companionship was my solace in empty-nest-initiation and his lack of stealth was a bit of noise i desperately needed around me. so much to say about that little creature. yes, who rescued who?

his absence now is, if possible, even bigger than his presence. babycat love – ours and his – surrounds me.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


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our H. [merely-a-thought monday]

the last time i had an in-depth conversation with him, H said, “i have my hope on the generation coming up…that they will be a force for the good.” i cannot imagine a bigger force for good than sweet H.

the candle is burning now. we have had it lit many times in recent days as H has struggled with the fine line between living and dying. the image of his dear face in our mind’s eye reminds us of how to grow old gracefully, how to live into aging, how to participate, how to be in the river not on the river’s edge.

we just heard that H died last night and, as i write this on saturday morning, the sun bursting outside and the birds in full song, my heart is breaking. i have adored H – now ninety-something-something – since the first day he walked into the choir room in which i used to direct choirs, ukulele bands, handbells and be a part of all the joy and community mutually created in that room. his spirit entered before he did, flowing positive energy and a will to try anything, laughter his guide. his bass voice in our choir, in our ukulele band, in our lives was grounding and the gift of angels who had gone before him. H was intrepid. rain, sleet, snow or ice did not deter him or any adventure he took on. he worked harder than most in his earlier years and he played with childlike glee in his later years. mostly, he was not afraid. he wasn’t afraid to learn new things or take on technology. he wasn’t afraid to sing solo or rap in front of others. he wasn’t afraid to travel or to just simply be who he was. he was fiercely devoted to his family, each of them. he wasn’t afraid to love or to state how he felt or what he thought. he was more genuine than many who claim authenticity as their core. a faithful human being, he was.

the refrigerator magnets cluster together from places he went; he always proudly brought me back a magnet from his travels. at the end of the year he’d give me a multitude of those calendars you get in the mail – from all different organizations he had contributed to or of which he was a part – and i’d pick one to hang in the choir room, one to hang at home and one to use for notes. the charlie brown coffee mug in our mug cabinet, that he had carefully wrapped in its suitcase-journey from the peanuts museum in california, is a favorite treasure. he loved butterfingers. he was H.

our last conversation, just a few days ago, was a little disjointed. H couldn’t hear what i was saying on the phone but was trying hard to speak. unlike all our other calls, we didn’t really talk about anything that time. but one thing was clear – shared love and respect for each other and the absolute happiness we each felt having this special friendship. he was H and, oh, his heart.

in an earlier longer call he had talked about the dynamics of our country. he was worried and said that his concern was that current circumstances were like a snowball going downhill…getting bigger and bigger, worse and worse. while i would agree that our country, in big places and small, is in desperate need of a thawing-out of mean-spirited snowballs going rapidly downhill, i would offer that there are other domino effects as well, the kind that take frosty snowflakes and build magical snowmen and the snowforts of children’s imaginings. H is such snow magic, if you will – a trillion unique flakes joined together by infinite molecules of kindness. a snowball that gains in momentum and size – in every good way – each time he was around people. brilliant snowflakes attracted to a genuine and gentle man who would dedicatedly stick with you through thick and thin, persons drawn to each other like perfect individual crystals, stars together.

H lived his hope for the future – he was a force for good. there is no reckoning about this. he will shine in the stars and in all the bass solos. he will gather angels around him, singing, and create fairy-dust-snowflakes. he will be missed and he will be remembered. he was H and his heart was gigantic.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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always an honor.

img_3625.jpgi played for a funeral today. the family celebrated the life of a beautiful young woman who i didn’t know, but who, through the stories told, sounded lovely. the sanctuary was full and boxes of tissues were numerous throughout the pews. my heart hurt for them; i was upstairs in the balcony, separated from this family, but joined in the feeling of what grief can do.

someone asked me if it was hard to play for funerals, if i would prefer not to. completely opposite of that, i am honored to play for a funeral. it is the last public celebration of someone’s life; it is sobering to think that you can play a part in maybe, just maybe, providing something that might be comforting to people in pain. as a minister of music i often play for funerals and for weddings as well; both are gifts, reminders of holding on to the people we love, letting these people know we love them. trite, maybe. but sitting in a balcony gazing down at those who have gathered to celebrate the coming-together of two lives or the time a person has spent in their midst cuts to the core of my soul and i always find myself weeping. i am fortunate to work with an amazing pastor whose extra-tall physical presence belies his soft heart. his voice cracks in emotional response in these difficult times. i feel lucky to be around someone who has so much empathy and compassion; our world truly needs more pToms.

years ago i played for my brother’s funeral. in recent years, my dad’s and my sweet momma’s. they were devastatingly hard to play for, but i wouldn’t have had it any other way. i chose music i knew my dad and my mom would want, hymns that were their personal favorites, melody and lyrics that have meant something to them. i played a song i wrote for each of them. it was an unbelievable honor to have this important role in the celebration of their lives.

IMG_3812

my big bro and me. way too long ago.

today is my big brother’s birthday. wayne would have been 67 today.  i have often spoken of him in my writings. i don’t think there is a day that goes by without my thinking of him. i miss him. i say that each year. it never changes. grief is like that. it’s just there. the desperate moments, well, they ease up. but the i-wish-he-was-here moments – they keep coming.

today i sat on the organ bench and, in a moment of overwhelm, dug my phone out of my bag. i texted d…that this young woman was so…young. and that it took my breath away. it made me want to hug both of my children that very moment. impossible, with the girl in the middle of a move from one mountain range to another, and the boy in the middle of a beautiful boston day. so i texted d, who i knew understood all the layers of heart that playing for this service today touched. hard. not my favorite thing to do. but always, always an honor.