ET
My Grandmother died on June 21, 2022.
In the middle of the night, I was dreaming a prayer that my friend Kohenet Ketzirah arranged.
The last line is “ G!D is change” and it was on repeat in my dreamy state.
The first line is “ We have lived before. We will live again.”
My phone clicked, I sat up and I knew she was gone.
I’ve been dancing with my grief sometimes alone and sometimes with others.
I’m having trouble finding any words to describe my Grandmother, known to most as “ET” ( Elaine Title, her maiden name).
Especially b/c all of the things I remember, honor, treasure about her didn’t really make it to the obituary.
They can’t be printed on a page. They are imprinted on my soul.
I’m numb, then I feel a pain deep in my gut that is unfamiliar, agonizing, unbearable.
On a walk recently, I was looking for her, looking up and around “ Grandma, where are you?” and realized/felt/revealed she is everywhere in my being.
My hands spread open. My breath and pace slowed. Whoa. Chills down my spine.
She is in my cells. She is in my actions. She is in my words. She is in my fingertips and my toes. She is in my heart. She is in my intellect. She is everywhere I am.
She is.
She shaped me. She formed me. She challenged me.
And for that, I smile.
No longer seeking/ missing/ wishing but rather
accepting, allowing, opening to it all.
This perfect natural rhythm of life and death, that none of us will escape.
The one thing we all have in common.
We will die and everyone we love will die.
And so, how does that help us live?
How does that widen, deepen, open, expand the mystery?
From generation to generation- we cycle.
I have taken my place now.
And so it is.
************************
“We have lived before. We will live again.
We will be silk, Stone, Mind, Star.
We will be scattered, Gathered, Molded, Probed.
We will live, And we will serve life.
We will live, And we will serve life.
We will shape G!d
And G!d will shape us
Again, Always again, Fo-re-ver more.
All that you touch. You Change.
All that you Change Changes you.
The only lasting truth, The only lasting truth
The only lasting truth is Change.
G!d is, G!d is
G!d is Change.
Words by Octavia Butler (1947–2016)
Aleinu Melody by Cantor Salomon Sulzer (1804–1890)
Arrangement by Kohenet Ketzirah Lesser (1973 — )”
