Another Broken Hallelujah

“It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”
(Leonard Cohen)

There’s a soft rustling of wings to mark the presence of angels gathering ‘round but they bring small comfort on this day that has come unexpectedly and come all too soon. No matter how many times I have ushered various souls through their final moments in corporeal form, goodbyes are not my forte so my breaking heart is on its knees begging for a miracle.

But it is answered with only silence.

I wait restlessly for the dreaded phone call to tell me that another chapter of my life has ended; thoughts uneasy and fleeting, pacing incessantly between opposing corners of hope and despair. Wanting to jump into the car and drive the few hours needed to close the physical distance but knowing full well that when measured in terms of all things holy there is no distance at all. For the truth is there has never been any distance between my chosen sister’s heart and mine and no matter what happens in that hospital room there will never be any. But this is one of the hardest lessons of being human and my tears fall yet again as if through sheer number they might somehow wrest a different and more selfish outcome.

As word gets out about the tragic situation, I find myself reading my notes aloud over and over again; reciting the litany of the unremitting and seemingly nonsensical timeline to others who now join me in this surreal sense of disbelief and I can feel the Sword of Damocles growing larger as it overshadows ever more hearts huddling closely together.

On this bright, cold afternoon I would like nothing more than to lie down and take a nap but sleep is not possible even though exhaustion draws nigh. There are a million things that can be done instead and several that by all rights should be done instead but the waiting overwhelms, drowning out my mind’s ability to focus and so I wander aimlessly from room to room, doing little things here and there.

But there is no escaping the inevitable and so it is that the phone finally rings and all hope is removed with the precision of a laser, replaced by the ritual of making final arrangements. There is a modicum of comfort to be found in this; even though it is the last thing on anyone’s list, at least it provides the opportunity of doing…something.

Godspeed, Nonda. Rest easy now, knowing you are the reason countless wild lives were able to reclaim their birthright. You leave behind a tremendous legacy in the now-breaking hearts that learned so much from your always-willing, wise words.

You are missed more than you could ever know.