Splendor

Sometimes life isn’t what we think or wish it could be, or decisions we’ve made haven’t always been the best decisions. Easter Sunday was fast approaching and I could remember all the times spent with family going to Mass or Church, having a meal and taking photos with our new Easter outfits. Then there were times I wasn’t with family but choose to travel. One time in particular played back a memory of leaving my teenage son Kelvin at home and buying him an Easter Cookie announcing I would be
traveling for the holiday weekend. After all, Kelvin was a Buddhist so Easter wasn’t a holiday that he celebrated anyway.        The journey I took was one of the worst trips I’ve experienced to date. As I looked at a photo with Kelvin biting into the cookie, it reminded me of that choice. So I felt an overwhelming need to be home with family this Easter as I did not want to be alone with that memory. The only issue is I was down south tending to the Sacred Moon Life Center, and I didn’t have the energy to travel so I made arrangements to have dinner with my adopted family the Lassiters. Well on Good Friday, I realized I was fearful of what could potentially be called “Splendor in the Grass” syndrome:

“…The radiance which was once so bright

Is now forever taken from my sight.

Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass

Of glory in the flower

We will grieve not

Rather find strength in what remains behind.”

By William Wordsworth

I needed to face the pain of what happened 11 years ago with not spending that Easter with my son. So, I decided to spend Easter alone and test where I was emotionally with being alone. Although I had to cancel my original plans, the Lassiters were a little perplexed, but none-the-less, very understanding. That Saturday, I went and purchased food for Easter Dinner and some herbs to plant as smelling the herbs would bring joy to my spirit.

On Easter Sunday, I decided to place a lounge chair in the front yard and try to read

two books, take deep breaths in between, talk to the herbs, touch the herbs and smell them, and fix an Easter basket so that I wouldn’t have to move. As I set there for a few hours, the word “SPLENDOR” came to mind to describe how I felt. How my soul felt in this waking hour. As I jotted down words, instead of tears, this expression poured out:

The radiance of brightness forever in sight

Now

Grieve not for what has passed, but instead

give glory to the brightness of today

for a flower that has dried has too it’s own beauty!

The realization of moving forward is

facing what has brought pain or fear,

and replacing it with what brings

your soul splendor!