Part One: Threshold

A story of lament, honesty, and honor

Photo by Nic Berlin on Unsplash

In the season of lament I said to the healer, “I heard you help people bury the death they carry. Can you help me bury mine?” 

“Oh, dear one, I am sorry it has come to this. Yes.” Was her reply. “Come to the place of your beginning, on the threshold of winter into spring and we, my priestly husband and I will do our work with you there.” So we did, the man whom I have loved and I. 

“How have you come? What stories do you carried with you?” Asked the priest and the healer. 

I said, “I am anxious; I have come by way of discernment and in the care and affirmation of seven good women. I am open and tired.”

“Your soil is well-tilled, I see tears behind your eyes.”

The man whom I have loved said, “I am nervous too. I come not knowing what to expect and with the prayers of my family.”

“You both will go on a journey through the underworld. Let us begin.”

“Your first creative act together is your marriage, this is your first child. Where is he? What is her condition? Asked the healer.

“Here, a child age 12. For some years he has been in foster care. Now he’s on life-support.” Said the man whom I have loved. 

“Here, a body bag. I do not know how long she’s been in there. But I have swallowed it. It is hidden in my gut,” I said.

“Do you know what happens when you swallow death? It comes looking for you. Hand them over; let us do our surgical work.”

The questions were sharp, the excavating was deep, their touch firm yet kind. We saw the little boy, the veiled and angry man, the grieving mother, the too long kept ashes. 

“We see years of mishandled hearts. 

We see years of cowardice against contending with your truth. 

We see years of a half-opened door. 

We see years of not having found safety. 

The chasm is wide. 

What will you do about it?”

We don’t know how to take in the question.

“Death has come. We rarely arrive at this diagnosis so quickly. We can see you living all your days this way. Is this what you want?”

“We are weary and can no longer,” we say. 

“Then what will you do about it?”

We must bury it. 

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“How was your night?” asked our attendants.

“It was full of wrestling and fears that I do not want to name. My body came purging and I must follow her lead,” said I.

“You know what you came to do. But, you woman, are stalling.”

“Yes,” I said, “because I am afraid.”

The priest, with kindness in his eyes, held up a mirror and with warmth in his voice bade me look. I saw myself holding onto years of confusion and mishandling, locked like a bird in caged suspicion. I tried singing in what I believed was the key of love, modulating to care, to solutions, to fears, then criticism. My songs were to protect us, then tend to him, then protect me and the little ones in our care. My songs no power to unlock. We were all left hurting.

“Is this how you want to keep living? Is this who you want to be? You have known what to do but you came to us looking for permission. You came wanting us to bury for you. This is not our work. This is yours to do.”

“You are a remarkable woman. 

You are good at this work. 

You have things to do. 

You must risk so that you may do them well. Let the man whom you have loved attend to his own healing work and uncover his lost courage. This journey is not yours to manage. You no longer find safety there.”

“Yes,” came my sorrow and relief, “I must bury, even if he cannot accompany me.”

“Tomorrow the healer and I will take you to the river to perform the rite.”

The evening was an ocean of resolve and fears, betrayals and tears, reckoning and comforting, listening and breathing, goodbyes and peace. 

The night again was harrowing and dark. There were fears at midnight, doubts at two, violent dreams at four. 

For too long my mind has quieted what my body has already known. 

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We met at the river. The air was cool, the sun warm. The cloudless sky was just as the day we began. Final preparations were made, eulogies written, elements displayed. We sat on the ground knee to knee, face to face. 

We remembered

We honored

We lamented

We wept

The man whom I have loved put ashes on his cheeks.

I covered my face in honest desperation to fulfill a longing I’ve had for 8 years. I dug a hole and placed in it the gold from my finger and stared at it long and hard. I covered it and marked and kissed the grave. 

I took him by the hand and led him to the river where we spread handfuls of ashes. 

One for the Spring 

One for the Ash 

One for the Courageous Heart, 

One for the Clearing, 

One for him,

and one for me. 

We stooped by the water’s edge and washed each other clean, my dear friend and me. We shared a warmth and a smile in the cold water. I held his face for one more long look. 

A song was sung of the goodness to come and the priest came with a vessel of golden dust. In firmness and conviction he spread it on my dear friend’s chest. He called him on a quest to recover his courage. The priest came to me and glinted my face. He named me queen and baptized me for the calling ahead.

Then came the healer with her oil. She anointed my dear friend affirming his goodness and dignity. With tears she came to me, “I know that woman with the ash on her face. She has suffered long. She will not be left alone.“

To us both she said, “May resurrection come find you and may its power take your breath away.” 

I faced my dear friend and blessed him with three gifts for his healing. 

One for the comfort of the little boy.

One for the softening of the veiled and angry man.

One for the wisdom of the wholeness of the man yet to come. 

In peace and sorrow we left the river. We had held onto the heaviness of death for far too many seasons and it was bereft of any solace. We were well acquainted with how to carry it. It’s time to learn how to live free from it. For now we rest under fallow ground and wait for resurrection to come. 

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