Two events, one yesterday the other this morning, caused me to feel strangely exhilarated. Yesterday I helped with a memorial service for the patient I’ve written about; it took place at the psycho-geriatric care centre where he’d spent his last years. His sons and daughters came, along with their little ones; they read an obituary and several people spoke: two residents recalling his kind nature, a care aide sang a song, someone read Psalm 23 and another blessings by John O’Donohue. We watched a slide show of family photos and then had tea, chatted for a while, and admired a coworker’s new baby.
Leaving the building, I felt as if I was walking on air, so light and so happy. Similarly this morning after guiding a meditation group for people living with cancer. Again, afterwards, this sensation of elation.
What was that? How could I feel so invigorated in the presence of loss, sadness, severe illness, and pain? I enjoyed the sensation but resisted rational explanations — merely observing its unfolding and gradual fading into the need for a mid-day nap. Awakening refreshed I reached for a book of poems and there, as it happens from time to time, a glimpse into the mystery. A third into “Vacillation,” W.B. Yeats writes —
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. (2000). Wordsworth Editions, p. 212.
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