In Honor of My Twin Brother: Mary Oliver -- When Death Comes

 For John

This is for my brother, John Ward Strong, Jr. who died 36 years ago today. John and I were 26 years old when he ended his life. Out of his tortured life and tragic death has emerged this passion within myself for life, for healing and awakening, for gratitude and love, for learning to open my heart and live with compassion and tenderness. I also do this for both of us. 

So many of us grow up feeling isolated, although we may be surrounded by many people. We may - as John and I both once did - shut down, shut up, and shut out life, love, connectedness and belonging. Smiling outwardly but living lives of quiet inner desperation, too many cannot find the doorway through so much pain into awakening. Instead we live believing the lie that we are somehow horribly flawed and alone and unlovable.

May we all root into paths of healing and awakening. And may we live with intention and increasing awareness of how very precious all of life is. May we spread the word... through a smile, a touch, deep listening, laughter, mindfulness of our judgments, and consciously choosing compassion, caring, kindness and love... again and again and again.

It is my belief that we all need help in remembering who we really are. As I have pinched my nose and risked to open my heart and learn to give and receive the love that has always been there, all has become possible. In the midst of so much darkness and loss are always the hidden gems - the gifts which remind us of what we have forgotten. And then we begin to know and live with amazement, wonder, and holding ourselves and one another with great tenderness. Blessed be.

And bless my brother for, in his death, pushing me through the doorway into life.

With love and gratitude ~ Molly

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

- Mary Oliver