Last week, I came across two social media posts in as many days that mentioned Wendell Berry. I didn’t know who he was so looked him up and learned he’s a writer, among other things. The search also showed one of his poems, “The Peace of Wild Things.” In reading it, I realized I had heard it recently in a podcast, the speaker reciting it to himself during his anxiety attacks.
Berry writes about waking in the night with fear (with nightmares lately, for me) and going out into nature:
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
“…forethought of grief…”
Wow, does that resonate.
All the “what-ifs” that give me a pit in my stomach.
What if that happens to Chuck? What if this happens to Cody?
What if…what if…what if…
This is my last week of silence in my house during the day likely for close to the next two months. Starting next week Cody will go back to distance learning and Chuck will work from home and I have cancelled all my doctor appointments in an effort to isolate before Chuck’s second (very unexpected) open-heart surgery.
What if this happens in surgery? Or this? Or that??
What if Cody has not one seizure on the day of surgery like last time, but many seizures in the 2½-week wait for surgery? In the stressful 2½ weeks of wondering if daddy is going to die in surgery, whereas last time we only told him four days before surgery.
What if.
But the wild things have no forethought of grief.
They live in peace.
Three years ago, after attending a concert with some friends, I paused as I walked up to the front door from my driveway. It was the end of March, a March after the snowiest February on record so we still had piles of snow. There I stood (on crutches) in my yard at 10:30 p.m. on a cold, dark night amid the snow. For some reason, I think just the joy of the evening and wanting to relish it a little longer, I stopped in the middle of my front sidewalk, turned around, and just looked up.
I looked up into a very dark sky. Yet, as I stood there, my eyes adjusted and star after star began sparkling above me. And there was the Big Dipper, shining right over my head – and I knew God was right there too. That He would be there through the next six weeks as we prepared for Chuck’s first open-heart surgery.
Several times since then He has shown me the Big Dipper on eventful nights – a little wink to remind me He’s there.
But I haven’t seen the Big Dipper lately…and, to be honest, I don’t really feel like He’s right next to me either.
After scheduling this surgery, I had the thought that I can look forward to seeing the Big Dipper on the same date, three years later, which is three weeks after surgery, after the worst of the complications and recovery should be over. We are now less than three weeks from surgery and I just keep saying to myself, “Three weeks in, three weeks out.”
Then I can look for the Big Dipper again. And God.
So, I’m trying to let go of the forethought of grief. I am trying to live focusing only on today. And when my mind goes to the future, I need to think not about the day of surgery but beyond it to the day three weeks later when I can stand on my front sidewalk and look up. Just look up and see the stars and know God has been next to me this whole time.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”
waiting with their light.
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