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March 8th will arrive--and with it, the one year anniversary of Rob's death. This evening I wondered if the distance between earth and heaven might be more permeable on such a day.
I come from Ireland and though I don't practice Celtic spirituality, I did grow up hearing stories about the afterlife and the spaces between here and there. It's a thin place when the boundaries between earth and heaven become more transparent. In such a space we can better sense the divine--commune with those who have gone before us. The Celts call these spaces, CAOL ÁIT.
As a teenager, I was fascinated by the closing lines of Whitman's Song of Myself. I would walk about reciting these lines in my mind--almost as if they were a mantra.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
I wonder where Rob has stopped, who he now is, and what he means. He told me heaven was a parallel universe and I should sense him in the darkened sky.
"Leave breadcrumbs," I whispered as he was dying. "Leave breadcrumbs and when it is my time, I'll follow."
