I Wish for Kindness & Peace
It is hard for me to relate to most people. When I wrote my first piece for Modern Loss, I mentioned it was hard for me to relate to guys on dates. I think it goes deeper than that.
I remember Joe’s eyes as he lay in his bed and his friend, Erin, asked if he was excited for his birthday. I remember his eyes, always his eyes. So badly he wanted to make it to 29.
“What is life worth, when everything else is gone?”
-A quote from Joe’s journal, fall 2012.
I remember being dressed up in a pretty blue dress. We were suppose to be at Mohegan Sun, yet we were with hospice instead. “Wow,” he said, his eyes full of love as I walked into the room. We might be going to radiation,
sleeping in cancer hospitals, or in the twilight of hospice days, but I would still look nice for Joe. Besides if I stopped looking like me this might have thrown him. Just because we are so close, hate that past tense. He probably would have called Anthony and been worried. Mind you Joe probably would not have been too pleased about the fall out after, but then he was missing.
I’ve broken and come together, but the pieces are off. I wish for kindness and peace, and for people to live their lives fully alive. Joe would have given anything for just one more day.
Breathe, deep.
Feel you are here.
Look into eyes.
Be curious.
Laugh, all the time.
xx Joe’s Sister
And a Pretty Poem:
“The Invitation” by Oriah (Full poem found here:
http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com)
“It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It does’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
I want to know if you can be with
joy mine or your own if you can
dance with wildness and let the
ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes without cautioning us
to be careful to be realistic to
remember the limitations of being human.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
everyday.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
I want to know
what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.”
***
A Certain Darkness is Needed to See the Stars.
-Osho
