Inside Out

3
644

Pilgrim’s Progress Blocked at the Gate        

By Michele McCormick
By Michele McCormick

Death. Mortality. Spring-like thoughts they are not. Spring is about new life, beginnings not endings. Why then such gloomy reflections on death? My younger sister, living in Dallas with a husband and two sons, ages 17 and 18, died in our family home last month. An unexpected complication following wrist surgery, a clot broke free, lodged in her heart. Boom. Gone. I loved her so.

Now, I am the last McCormick standing, having buried my father, my mother and sister to sudden death. Not one of them died slowly. Good for them. A strange sensation for the lone survivor. Never lost an only sibling. This is new territory, and I am feeling my mortality.

Not long after losing my mother, I traveled to Varanasi, India. Our guide, a Loyola Marymount religion professor, led us to the cremation grounds to pray. As our boat floated just off shore along the banks of the Ganges, we observed families carrying their dead to the funeral pyres. Meditating in the charnel grounds while bodies decompose is a foundational practice for Buddhist monks. I am no monk, yet in my grief I turned to nature, looking to fashion my own grief pilgrimage.

In one short week I explored every acre of Aliso Wood Wilderness Park. Like Thoreau, I felt called to solitude and the wild. For aboriginal tribes, walkabout rites of passage must contain elements of the unknown, deprivation, and life or death risk. Feeling flat and only half alive, I walked and walked and walked those park trails. I followed the lay of the land along Aliso Creek. Green tops of cottonwood trees lined the streambed as if pointing the way. On a Monday I was alone out there but for the sound of the wind. I couldn’t stop. It was as if I was being pulled. I had to see if this canyon opened to the sea.

It did. Coming up over a rise, I found myself at the back gate of The Ranch, a resort property only a mile south of my beach cottage. That was it. Mystery solved. I was being pulled home until I was suddenly stopped short by a bold sign, “No Trespassing. Private Property. Violators will be Prosecuted.” I studied that gate for a short minute. Growing up in Texas, there was an understanding between ranchers and kids that a barbed-wire fence was for cattle not children. Banking on that memory, I found a way through, but in a split second a security guard raced toward me in his golf cart. He said, “This is private property. Ma’am, you cannot come through that gate.”

I wanted to say, “Look dude my sister died. Please just let me go home so I can cry.” I did say, “I’m exhausted. I thought I could get through. Honestly, sir, I’m not sure I can make it back to my car.” His trained response, “Sorry, only paying customers have access.” I dove for my wallet, “I’ll pay right now.” He said, “Nope, you’d have to go around to the front and pay up there the regular way.”

I wanted to break into a Janis Joplin tune, rip off my shirt and make a run through the gate singing, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” Under normal circumstances, I would have persisted, advocated for myself especially since I knew I was dehydrated. I knew he was a kid just doing his job, clearly not into listening to the stories of would-be trespassers. He was locked in. So I sat down on the hard earth and gave it up. I checked my phone. Battery dead. I drank the last two ounces of my water. He sat in his golf cart. Waiting. I contemplated the situation, “What a deal. Here I am walking on the edge of life and death while those golfers over there are laughing, enjoying the serenity of this natural beauty.”

Aware that I was falling into a victim mode, I accepted my predicament. I would turn around and walk out even while on the edge of life and an imagined death. This was fast becoming a true rite of passage. Sometimes life is like this. We are flowing with our dreams and hit a roadblock. Right in the middle of living, death just shows up and stops us. We don’t always get to finish.

I decided to let go, allow grief to take its course – just hang on for the ride. Because sometimes when we take that wild ride, we may discover in the end that the one we mourn has been with us all along, at home in our hearts. We might never have needed to leave the front porch. Either way, I look forward to the day that Mark Christy honors that Coastal Commission agreement to open the trail because I need get on down the road to launch two amazing teenage boys.

Michele McCormick is a psychologist who spins stories about life in Laguna with a psychological twist and a dose of inspiration. She can be reached at [email protected].

 

 

Share this:

3 COMMENTS

  1. “We don’t always get to finish.” Yes, you are exactly right, yet therein is the joy of the dance. There’s risk and the chance of triumph, mediocrity or defeat. Such an exhilaration. “And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” (Lee Ann Womack)

  2. What a moving post. (I’m sorry for your loss.) I really connected with your feelings and experience and the words you assembled to describe them. Thank you.

  3. Appreciate this author’s way of weaving so many stories into one narrative. It’s about grief, courage and social activism. So, let’s get that gate open to the sea. What will it take?

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here