Don't Cut Your Losses

This morning I was sitting with Wantana eating a bowl of oatmeal laced with freshly made almond milk Wantana had made for me after I had told her that was what I preferred in my cereal and tea. It was a beautiful morning, the sun and the sound of the surf beckoning me to come out and play, but I was exhausted and I had a tiny flea infested six week old puppy that I had rescued from a drainage ditch yesterday asleep on my lap. Sarah, the director of Nosara Animal Care, was coming to pick up "Francine", but was running behind so we sat and talked, our conversation weaving in and out of myriad topics ranging from Wantana's talents as an herbalist to stories about our lives, to Dharma and local gossip. Wantana was telling me about her son, who was going to Afghanistan soon and her marriage that ended in divorce after ten years. "I still love him" she said, but her need to be alone and independent had no place in her marriage. After the divorce she went back to the temple to aquire some grounding and to reaquaint herself with her Buddhist upbringing. "It was like a death" she said. Like a death. We experience so many losses in our lives that are "like a death". Divorce, children growing up and leaving home, the loss of a job, a move, an affair. All of these experiences are considerable losses, but why don't we honor them as such? I remember when our son Joshua went to college-Dan and I were so busy preparing for the transition- shopping, helping get his finances in order. We impulsively planned a vacation departing the day we said goodbye to Josh in his new college home. Sitting on the plane I remember feeling somewhat in shock. We never once talked about what a change this would be for our family of four- we never talked about how this would change all of our lives, how this might make us feel and what could we do to honor this transition. When there is a death everyone is informed, family friends, community- we all come together to support one another. Why don't we have rituals or other ways to acknowledge life's other losses? When my heart was broken by my husbands affair- which really was the death of my marriage as I knew it- there were not many places or people to turn to, no rite of passage that could help me navigate through this significant loss. No way to properly grieve. The story of our losses are usually the transformative ones that lead to our greatest openings if we let them and in that place of total vulnerabilty and emptiness something else is born. Something I recognized about myself during this recent heartbreak was that my heart had been broken long before as a young girl of twelve and only lately do I realize how significant this is to me. I come by my singing voice quite honestly. My dad, Robert "Bob" Sachse, had the most beautiful honey toned voice I had ever heard. He emulated Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte, the Everley Brothers- he had an original and compelling voice that along with his smooth guitar playing style, was the center of attention at all family, church and community gatherings. I am the oldest of six and the one my father focused his attention on, teaching me guitar at an early age, sitting me down at the kitchen table of our farnhouse teaching me all of his songs. I in turn, taught my sisters to sing harmony and a family band was born. My fondest memories as a young girl consist of me singing and playing guitar wilth my family and being loved and apprecitaed for it. That all ended when my dad suffered a head injury in a near fatal car accident that left him unable to play guitar and sing ever again and although I continued to sing, I never played guitar again. I feel so sad writing these words and I feel that familiar "lump" in my throat chakra. How could a twelve year old gilrl recognize and move through that kind of loss? The death of something very beautiful in my young life. So, contemplating lifes losses on Wantanas porch and thinking about my recent committment to bring awaremness to the passages not only in my life, but in the lives of my family, friends and community. I was in a sleepy day dream, a sleeping puppy on my lap when I heard Wantana say, "Oh, I have a guitar for you, do you play?"