Visiting Angels

seen and unseen

My father sleeps nearby, his breathing labored and heavy. It’s as if the whole room is breathing through a huge brown paper bag. I feel the angels come and go throughout the night, sometimes with morphine but more often with care. They tend to his failing body, but also to his soul which feels more present these days.

All the while, the unseen world of awareness holds it all; the coming and going, the person and the emptiness, the suffering and something I can’t quite name.

With the twilight of morning, I can only sense the imperfection and cruelty of death. The helplessness. The inability to take the suffering away. The inevitability of endings. The clumsiness of letting go. I want the imperfection of life to happen more quickly.

Is it for him, or me, that I’d want such a thing?

Now I’m filled with guilt. Shame.

And I wonder: is this how we created death, in the beginning? An imperfect thought breathed into existence? If so, I vow to take it back and search inside myself for truth, for what I know, right now.

I let the idea of father and child fade into the background, until the simple act of paying attention offers the flashlight of awareness to the unseen angels.

Yes, from inside this place…there’s rising, and returning, and pausing. There’s weight from a blanket. The coolness of the air. The tingling of subtle movement. The holding made possible by the plastic covered couch. The soothing of jazz willowing in the air while the oxygen machine pushes a static tempo. The beckoning of warm darkness, like an intoxicating slide into another world.

Once there (or is it here), I feel a natural urge to see peace, claim peace, know peace. And there it is: the unnamable beauty found in the midst of imperfection. Here there is only one breath; only perfection. There’s no need to rush anything. I don’t need to know who, or why, or how death was created. And I realize, maybe the only thing we’ve ever lost—both the father and the daughter—is the willingness to embrace the mystery of life.

This is our shared lineage.

As my father awakes, I’m reminded there is another way to live. Now I can see I can’t control, plan, or expedite life (or death) into submission. Life wants to run free, so every moment is fresh, an opportunity to claim more love, a new experiment with creation. And it appears the only real choice in life is freedom and imperfection, over fear, guilt and shame. Choosing freedom requires I replace helplessness with surrender, my discomfort with uncomfortable endings with the natural grief that comes with conclusions, and the clumsiness of letting go with the space and grace where everything belongs, however difficult.

I commit to that, yet again, and there’s peace.

So, today I remind myself I can always choose peace; not only for myself, but also for my father, knowing it's that simple act that honors the suffering and beckons the seen and unseen world together so living angels can be birthed into existence.

We are all those living angels, reclaiming our wings, if ever so awkwardly.