Monday, September 6, 2010

Missy Maloney, my first lost love

Today I had a very interesting experience with memory...
This morning Jim got the tractor stuck at the edge of the pond. Someone needed to sit on the tractor while the jeep pulled it out and since I was not comfortable pulling it out, I took the job of sitting on the tractor. As I was sitting on it as I took my foot off the brake to allow it to be pulled backwards it slipped a little forward first. Of course Jim had it all under control and seconds later the tractor was pulled away from the edge of the pond and I was safely off of it. But in that split second where it was slipping a memory slipped in, not just into my mind, but into my body.

The memory was of my best friend, my first love, who died at age 16. Her car went off a bridge and she drowned. Here's the part that was interesting. I had moved away a year before that and we had drifted apart ~ ya' know how it goes. You call alot at first then there are a few visits but then it stops. It stopped because our last visit I was very angry. I was angry because she had moved on with her life and was happy and I had been moved and was not happy. 6 months later she was gone. I didn't go to her funeral. I didn't even cry. I stuffed it...

Today all the emotions that were stuffed came back. It hit me blindsided. I didn't realize I had been holding so much anger and guilt. Anger that she left me (died) and I never got to say sorry. Guilt because I was angry at her for leaving. Lots of feelings that I was not even aware that I was holding.

So, the question I have is this... How many things happen to us on our journey here on this earth that we stuff that later comes out (when the just the right button is pushed) in yucky spewingness (I know, I know, not a word ~ but you know exactly what I am saying). And then the next question is how do we remember this lesson so that when someone else is feeling something that is painful so that we can hold the space of lovingkindness. That's the test. Holding the space of lovingkindness through the "stuff" that is being released, even when we are not aware that we are releasing stuff...

To end this post I say Thank You to my friend Missy Maloney who taught me about love and friendship and death and pain. She will never be forgotten in my heart.

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