Kaylee and Kevin

Yesterday, I received a call late in the morning.  I knew immediately before she said anything, by the sound of my mother’s voice that she was trying to control her sobs. Finally, garnering a shred of composure she choked out the message that two of my niece’s young children had been killed in an automobile accident a few hours before.  Apparently the car they were riding in was broadsided by a semi.

In the moment my mother conveyed the news, there was a jolt that ran through my body, and my solar plexus contracted as from a blow.  The images that arose were of the two little children lying dead in the wreckage; my niece, and her husband paralyzed with grief; my elderly mother alone, in shock; and the surviving little boy lying hurt in hospital. 

I watched as a hollow feeling radiated out from the center of my body, as I continued to listen to what my mother knew about the accident and the family gathering at the hospital in far away North Dakota.

After the call, I stayed with the observation of thought and feeling as it continued to arise and move through mind and body.  Surprisingly, I noticed that it was becoming an increasingly difficult effort to attach feeling to thought, and thought to feeling. 

I observed that arising simultaneously with the difficulty attaching was a nudging, as if from some distant part of myself, for me to suffer. It seemed to be chiding me for the sense of quiet stillness that was residing beneath conscious thought & physical sensation.  "After all", it seemed to say as it became conscious, “isn’t suffering a sign of love, compassion, and empathy for the suffering of my relatives.  And this ‘quiet stillness’ is just shock or denial, isn’t it?”

Reflexively the inquiry into the judgment of the stillness began…”Is it true that suffering would be proof of love, compassion, and empathy?  Is it true that suffering would be a validation of the children's lives?  This feeling of peace is false…a denial of the reality of a tragedy…is it true?”

The inquiry followed along these lines for some time until the question…”They are dead, is it true?” arose.  Suddenly, in a flash, the chiding voice disintegrated leaving in its wake an expansive awareness.

As the process continues this morning, I find that nowhere is there a place to ‘hang’ a hat of meaning.  I watch as fleeting thought and feeling move about without finding a place to rest.  What is the necessity of the moment?  Simply this.

.