Soulful reflections

I write, because this is what I do… to reflect and review, access and renew. Today my 20 year old son left to fly back to Michigan, the state of my birth and rich familial history. While just three short days ago my 25 year old son, his wife and their two small children left to head back to their home in Michigan. My children gifted me a wonderful winter surprise by visiting us these past two weeks here in northern New Hampshire. A prayer I sent out from the depths of my heart every minute of every day for the past year and a half I’ve lived here. 

I was telling my twenty year old how “unnatural” it feels to be away from your children and grandchildren, like I’m suspended in another state of being, far away from them. I can acknowledge this while also embracing the profoundly healing space this move has allotted us all. I’m currently reading Eternal Echoes by John O'Donohue and each time I pick up the book it speaks directly to my lived experience. Yesterday I read about “absence” and how it’s not the same as vacancy. We can try desperately to fill the gaps with a forced presence while in our efforts end up feeling more separate and disconnected. 

Sometimes intimacy requires space for each to find their authentic voice and internal nature. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”? Perhaps. In addition perhaps absence is not a disconnection either. It might, as well, be connected through invisible threads of longing and love. It amazes me how it’s as though no time has passed when we are in each-others presence and how it feels like eternity when we are not. The grandchildren seem to know me and feel comfortable with me, as I with them, even with the absence of time. This fascinates and assures me there is in fact something else that holds us in love’s eternal embrace. 

“Leaving is such sweet sorrow.” Sweet and sorrowful it is. I was sharing with a friend after my twenty-five year old and his family left that I noticed how lovely it was to dedicate 100% of my time and myself to being with them when they were here and how precious that exchange of energy was and rare. I loved having them come into “my world” for a moment in time and experiencing life in perhaps new ways, even seeing some “new things”. Just as I loved going back to Michigan into “their worlds” last December and experiencing things from a different advantage point there. 

I’m trying to recall if while I lived “just down the road” from my children in Michigan, if this energy I am witnessing now was still present even then... and I’m sure it was and always is, but something about this “absence” or gap makes me feel more aware of its teachings and blessing. Even now as I’m alone held in the peace and quiet, writing, I am both far away and ever close to these precious people I am grateful to call my children and family. While I’m equally aware of the privilege that comes from space, being able to sit in quiet - alone - writing. I’m also aware of the heart wrenching loss that distance can illuminate within my motherhood. 

I’m enjoying the imagination John O’Donohue offered me with both the definition of “absence” being “to be elsewhere”. And how so much of us is elsewhere even while we are physically close in proximity to our “loved ones”. And the imagination that where there is absence there is still energy, engagement, and longing; that longing that is derived from intimacy and love, connection. 

Lots to hold near and dear; Soulfully now, today, and always.

— Nicole Lynn 

Monday 1-25-21 Soulful reflections