Forever hold your penguin dear

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” – Jack Lemmon

March_1

Emma and I watched “March of the Penguins” for the first time on Saturday night. I know the whole world has seen it by now, but we hadn’t. Mr. Brilliant had to leave the room; even though he is a man wont to explore the joys of forensic pathology in his spare time, has been known to do surgery on himself, and is hell bent on watching every episode of The Sopranos in slow motion, the very thought of penguin babies freezing to death was too much for him. He can’t watch CSI or Law & Order or House episodes where kids are hurt—it’s all about the kids for him. He had to go. He retreated to the living room.

I myself escaped to the bathroom when a vulture arrived to feed on the young, leaving poor Emma to fend for herself. When an egg fell onto the ice and froze early on, I knew we were in for the real story, not the Disney version. Even so, at every turn when danger loomed, Emma and I would yelp in unison, our sharp intakes of breath prompting John to shout in anguish from the next room, “What?! What?! Oh, no, what’s happening now?”

“I can’t take anything else,” we would say, watching the mama penguin being eaten by a shark. And yet more came. And more. The fathers came back, the mothers left for their 70-mile march toward food, the mothers returned to find their partners and their children—except for some, those whose babies had died. Young ones froze on the ice; the fathers’ cries guttural and deep, echoing; a mother so in grief she tried to take another’s young. It was human in its complexity and in its utter simplicity and depth of emotion.

And even still, in the face of all the hardship and pain, progress continued—gorgeous baby chicks grew up to take the same long walks, to find partnership, to know relationship, to care for an egg through immeasurable odds, and they persevered. Perseverance, courage, love.

And so do we humans, it occurred to me as I watched. We face terrible odds. The death rate, after all, is 100%. And yet we persevere, even after the most anguished of losses, we continue, we put one foot in front of another for those long, sometimes lonely walks. And we arrive to find things changed.

No parent should have to say good bye to their child like that, not on the ice of Antarctica, nor from cancer, or of a drive-by shooting on the streets of Washington, D.C., nor of genocide in Darfur, not in a tsunami swept to sea, not at the hand of an abuser, not in an execution style shooting at a small Amish schoolhouse in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, and not in a car wreck at Exit 6 on I-240, the Chunns Cove Road exit.

It is not possible for me to conceive of the pain those families in Pennsylvania  felt, indeed the mothers and fathers of any child gone. I won’t try, because to try is to be a poseur in a grief too big to be approximated. I’ll simply ask: is there any greater pain than burying someone you love more than your own self? What is there to cling to in such a world?

Meta_in_hammockOn September 14, 2006, a young 20-year-old woman named Meta died in a car accident at 10:36pm. I didn’t know Meta; I had never met her. But I knew someone who knew her well, and the circle of support that lifted Meta  up afterwards also encircles me, and so I have shared in this extraordinary story, even if at a distance. I am writing not from that kind of personal loss that comes with losing someone close to you, but from a place of deep and profound thankfulness for the lessons that her death has brought me. It was too high a price to pay, but it has been paid and my only way to honor her is this—listening to, heeding the lessons.

There are the usual lessons—life is short, for example—and there are deeper ones too.

An outsider to this story, I have struggled to write about its impact on me since the weekend she died, since that day I received an email from my friend, Catherine, who was there in the room when Meta was born and there in the room for the precious hours and days after her death. Close friends with Meta’s parents, Catherine was one of four women (though I’m sure there were more I don’t know about)—Catherine, Sheila, Walker, and Caroline—who lifted up that family when they needed lifting, and in a way that eased Meta’s transition from this earth, in a way that taught us all how much death is a part of life to be embraced and held dear, in a way that taught us all how not to run from death as we often do.  

A woman named Ren wrote to me recently after reading an earlier essay on 37days: “I agree with you that the grieving process is a life-long thing. It’s about coming to terms with the new relationship you’ve got with the person. Because death doesn’t end the relationship, it ends a life (there’s an old quote about that…who is it?) and it’s this constant coming to terms with the fact that they aren’t physically there.”

I was struck silent by Ren’s note for a while, and then I wrote her back: “I can’t remember when I have been so struck by the truth of a statement than by yours about grieving being a process of coming to terms with the new relationship you’ve got with the person." That is it, exactly. It is not an end, it is a change.

It was my friend Catherine who started me on this journey with Meta. “I saw Meta a few weeks before she died. She looked like she was glowing. A number of people remarked on how she looked the last time they saw her," Catherine said, "like she was on fire from the inside out."

Get_out_of_jail_freeMeta had done her share of partying in her teenaged years, a wild child of sorts. Acknowledging those growing up years, her mother had given her a “Get out of Jail Free” card from a Monopoly game, just in case. It was found in her wallet after her death, a talisman for her in those years, a reminder of the love that shored her up, that always stood behind her. The little angel wings on the man getting out of jail were not lost on those who discovered it among her belongings after she died.

"She had gone to a spiritual retreat last February," Walker explained. Walker was another of the women who led the way in those days after Meta’s death. "After the retreat, her heart just simply opened. ‘This is my purpose in life,’ Meta had said afterwards," Walker told me when we talked about Meta’s death.

And, in fact, it seems from my vantage point, she fulfilled that purpose in death, given the extraordinary events that followed. The first urge to expression by all who knew  Meta was to open the space for love to emerge. And emerge it did.

I first heard from Catherine by email:

“We are helping each other move through those days with love,” Catherine wrote.

Everyone felt strongly about taking care of the body of Meta as she makes her transition…by hand, in person, and at home.

We contacted a local funeral home that honors alternative ways – and they transported Meta’s body out here.

We laid her in the cabin on Mary Anne and Deb’s land, and slowly over the next three days created an amazing sanctuary – flowers, candles, prayers, meditation, tears, smiles, photos, whatever was brought by the many people who came. The love is strong, and tangible. We kept a constant vigil – all day and all night—for those three days. On Saturday – Day 2 – there was a circle of over 100 people out in the meadow.

That Friday morning, we got in touch with a woman who is Buddhist and who has experience with this—this is the mission of her particular spiritual practice—helping people at the time of death. She came out to be with us right after Meta’s body came, and she taught us how to bathe, anoint, and dress the body, including sealing the injuries from the accident (on the back and the back of the head). Mary Anne, Deb, Michael (moms and dad) and three others (Sheila, Walker, and me) did this. Two air conditioners are running all the time to keep the air cool and dry. Three days is the recommended longest time. What a healing experience – taking care of your baby at this time. Thank you, Meta. We now know how to do this. It is embedded in my heart and mind, and I know that I will be able to help others do this.

I am writing this early in the morning of the day (Monday) when the funeral director will come back and we will take the body with him to be cremated.”

Meta_gatheringIt is a small cabin in a beautiful place, where the body of Meta rested for three days, in front of which a celebration of her life was held a week later.

Deep in the mountains of North Carolina, I believe the cabin was original to the property on which it stand, an old space for human living, and all that comes with human living—the joys of love, childbirth, breakfasts as a family, fights, sickness, dying, and death, no doubt. Four walls can tell so much; they are witness to our living. And in this cabin, generations have lived and died, no doubt.

In September, it became a sacred place, a sanctuary, a shrine, a place for transition, a resting place for the body of a young woman named Meta who died too fast, gone before she fulfilled her mission—or not?

The wreck occurred at the Chunn’s Cove exit off of 240, a four-lane by-pass circling our town. I pass by it most days. And yet, it is now a sacred place, a piece of land and asphalt that holds secrets: what happened in those moments, that moment of impact? A highway held her.

Meta_as_babyWouldn’t your impulse be to run to her, hold her, lift up your baby, catch her when she was falling? Can any of us know this story without placing ourselves in it? And that is what her family did. They brought her home, to catch her, to take care of her, to hold their baby.

And so it is, my passage past Chunn’s Cove Road has become altered, so much more so for her family, seeking clues there, I imagine, or not. What was Exit 6 is now holy ground; it soaked up her blood and took part of her, a part they long to hold again, I’m sure, as we all long for our loved ones to sit down at dinner with us just once more.

The sacred places that our bodies move past and through, themselves sacred. And yet, when people die, we move so quickly in the opposite direction, to have those bodies picked up and cleaned and sanitized. Pema Chodron has written that “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” To look away, not at; to dispose of quickly. Dead bodies are fearful things. We have lost sight, perhaps, of where we really are. When I try to locate myself in space and in place, why am I always confined to this space, this place? Am I my body, or is it merely a container for me? Why should I run at its disease, its death?

Death is mystery. It is awful and transformational and freeing and heartbreaking—it is also Truth and therefore fearful for many of us, for me. But this young woman has changed that—what a gift I have received from someone I never met, will never meet.

This sign was posted on the door to the cabin:

Please Read
Before Entering
Meta
’s Sacred Sanctuary:

Dear Beloved Friends of Meta,
Thank you for being here.

There are a couple of things to be aware of as we take good care of the body of Meta while she makes her transition.

As an alternative to the usual embalming of the body, the body of Meta was lovingly and naturally washed, anoited, and dressed here in the cabin.

Because no artificial  embalming techniques were involved, please be attentive to the following requests:

 1) Please keep the door closed. The air must be cool and dry, this is why there are air conditioners running.

2) If you touch, please be very gentle to respect the integrity of the physical body – so as to not disturb the tissues. We thank the body of Meta for housing her spirit.

We welcome you.
Meta
loves you all.


What we do in these moments defines us, somehow. I have to face the facts that my urge is to run, as I wanted to run from Tycho, and as I have run from other deaths. What I found in this story was a group of people who so loved this young woman that they walked solidly toward their fear and their not knowing. They had never done this before; it was not a reflex of habit, but of sheer, pure love.

Meta_graduationThe body of beautiful Meta arrived in a body bag, just as it had arrived at the hospital after the accident, not cleaned, not sanitized, not made nice.

“The hardest part for me,” Walker said, “was being there when they took her body out of the body bag. We had no idea what to expect.” Walker and a Buddhist Sangha named Caroline were the only two there then; they asked the people from the funeral home to help cut her clothes off. “It was hard until I saw her,” Walker remembered. “For me, there’s a decision point of opening my heart to love. And once I did that, I could do much more. I could remain really calm and loving.” It was a calm and a loving that would come to define that space, those days.

They put the body of Meta on a massage table in the little cabin and covered her with a sheet.   

“The soul is still nearby,” Walker said, "so we  knew we wanted to hold a loving space and help the soul to leave."

“The first day, it was just a few of us,” she remembered. Her daughter, one of Meta’s best friends, was there. “We washed Meta and dressed her and my daughter helped put makeup on her. It was a real gift and privilege to be there, and my daughter really saw that."

"It felt so natural and so right.”

“We held her in our arms,” Catherine explained. “We washed her tenderly, from her feet up to the top of her head. We sealed her wounds.” “Our approach,” Walker explained, "was trying to stay in our  hearts, to create a loving place, a place in which grief could come up and into your mind, and then leave, replaced by love. There was so much love in that room, it was palpable," she recalled.

Catherine echoed that feeling. “It had a timelessness about it, like we were not in time,” she said. “We all had such a strong impulse to take care of our baby—we wanted to wash her and take care of her. It became a holy place, a powerful place, a place of moving, walking love. We hadn’t done anything like this before, but we learned. We learned to apply witch hazel and powder and rose oil to the top of her head, her forehead, on our hearts. The intention with which we were there started the healing process for all of us. We kept vigil all day and all night for three days. At the end of those days, Meta’s parents spent time alone in the cabin with her body. When they emerged, they said it was clear to them that her spirit had left that place."

They had all helped the spirit of Meta fly.

As Walker put it, "hundreds of people all over the world were sending up prayers that her soul would be opened more and more to the light and love. On that Saturday night, we held community prayers in the cabin, praying for her soul. Most of my time was spent with Meta," she continued. "It felt like a gift."

"Our purpose in life is to open our heart to what is around us, to be in a place in compassion; this was such an opportunity to know what is of value…it gets so clear—you are there to open your heart and help your friends. It was an incredible blessing to be a part of this," Walker said.

That Monday morning, Meta’s oldest brother Niko and one of his two dads, John, carried the body of Meta out of the cabin. When they reached the crematorium, the group that accompanied them didn’t put Meta in a cardboard box, no. They put the body of Meta in a cardboard box. There is a difference. Meta lives, her body doesn’t. Would we look at death and dead bodies differently if we changed our language to reflect the reality of body and spirit? This intrepid, wise, amazing group of people accompanied the body of Meta to the crematorium where her body was put into a cardboard box. 

“We put flower petals on her, she had a garland of flowers for her head, she was beautiful,” Catherine recalled. “We played music and sang ‘I’ll fly away.’ Her dad, tears streaming down his face, clapped and kept time to the music. ‘Keep playing,’ he said, ‘keep playing.’” They sang as they put the cardboard box into the furnace.

"We thanked the body for housing Meta,” Catherine said, “and as we walked out of the building, we looked up and saw the smoke.”

It is a story so beautiful and so raw and so very intensely real that it breaks my heart and heals it all at the same time. And there is more. Just as the penguin story kept coming, there is more.

The body of Meta was cremated; her father Michael and brother Raj went the next day to pick up her ashes. To complete the circle of life in a way that gives me pause, they were led to the oven and raked her remains out themselves, her bones still holding the structure of her.

That, my friends, is what a full, rounded, complete circle looks like. That is what walking toward every part of life looks like—a leaf that is brown and dying on the ground is a thing of beauty just as is a green one; we are all part of a circle, one much bigger than we are. Why do we so break that circle?

As it turns out, one of the women who was instrumental in this story, Walker, is the owner of the gorgeous retreat center where we held our first 37days retreat several weeks ago; it felt circular to know that, to realize that after the fact, as if there was something drawing us there to that spot. Another of the women, Catherine, was one of the participants in that first retreat. Don’t try telling me that life isn’t circular in some significant ways. We are tying bows around significances every day, I think. We just don’t know it, or not yet.

~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~

Meta_one_dove_upIn this world, we often have things fill in for other things, often because the other things are too big, like an eclipse that is too bright to watch directly—we need a deflection, a parallelism, of sorts, to make them manageable: a rock for a burden, a sun for a yearning, the ocean for wishes, a dove for a spirit.

When I look at this photo from the celebration of Meta’s life, that dove caught perfectly in flight, I am most struck by the joy on the uplifted faces as that dove becomes Meta: who among us wouldn’t choose flight?

Even the “get out of jail free” man from the Monopoly game has wings, after all. That dove is imbued with much meaning, as are all the things of our days. Sometimes, the sun shines just right on them and we can acknowledge and own and see that meaning, sometimes not.

Death ends a life, not a relationship. What if each of us holds imaginal cells, something different from the current form of us, just as the butterfly waiting to emerge and fly?

I told my friend David about this extraordinary event, this holding up, this taking care of. He wrote back: “This is how a community is supposed to work. Imagine if we held each other with the same grace in life as they have shown Meta in death."

We are singularly unprepared for the death of someone so young—no matter their age. It calls into question meaning and fairness and truth. What we can only hope to do, I think, is move toward them with a heart so open to love that we can embrace the whole of them, body and spirit, and help that spirit to fly away from us so it can envelope us, so we can continue that relationship in a different, deeper, more intangible and yet more powerful way.

In each day that her family lives, I imagine that Meta will be a pentimento in those hours and weeks and months and years, just as my father is in mine, turning and turning in their mouths and hearts and limbs like a dorodango is turned, the silt of that dust of our ongoing days creating a precious, fine shine in which we can see ourselves, and them.

Meta_and_mary_anneForever hold your penguin dear, as Meta holds her mom, Mary Anne, in this photo. They need not freeze on cold, hard ice as long as you are holding them, if not in your arms, then in your heart, your mind, your own soul. Hold each other with the same grace in life as these beautiful people have shown  Meta in death.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Since adulthood,” her obituary read, “Meta grew into the knowledge that her true purpose was to spread love.” She had chosen a life of open-hearted love before her death as a result of attending a spiritual retreat seven months before she died. To enable other young people to attend Open Heart workshops, her family has started a scholarship fund. If you would like to give a donation of $3.70 or $37 or $370 – however large or small – to fulfill Meta’s dream, you can make a check payable to “Heart Sanctuary” (in the memo section, write “Meta’s Scholarship Fund”) and send it to: 37days – Meta’s Dream, P.O. Box 18323, Asheville, NC 28814. I’ll then forward our gifts to Meta’s family.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , ,

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

60 comments to " Forever hold your penguin dear "
  • Beautiful. I am crying. Thank you so much for sharing the story of this woman’s, of Meta’s (because I feel like she has blessed my life now), life.

    You will never know how much I needed this.

    I’ll be donating something, I don’t know how much I can yet, but SOMETHING to her dream.

    Thank you.

  • John

    This is, simply, beautiful.

  • at the beginning of this entry i was enjoying a cozy fondness for the close family you live in with children and parenting partner
    …by the end of the entry the feeling of cozy fondness expanded and grew as the spiral process of life and death and rebirth does.
    your writing inspires, teaches, humbles and comforts all at once.

  • “We are tying bows around significances every day…”

    Mr. Twain would call that “lightning”.

  • Wow. I am altered by your words.
    When my parents died in a terrible crash, I wanted more than anything to hold their hands, to caress them once more, to say good-bye to the bodies that had held me through my life… But nobody would let me because the bodies were so disfigured. I never got to see them. I’ve never gotten over that.
    My uncle just died a couple of weeks ago, and my Grandma, while so grateful to be able to be at his memorial service, couldn’t get past the fact that they had cremated his body before she got there. She yearned to hold his body once more, to say good-bye.
    I see it so clearly now… There is a deep universal need to walk towards the fear we feel in death, to hold the bodies, to embrace them, to say good-bye. This is the closure we need in order to turn our hearts to the new relationship we have with the beloved’s spirit…
    I am SO touched by this post. Thank you for sharing this story… from the bottom of my heart…

  • Closure elsewhere (in another community). …or at least a start.

    Thank you, Patti.

  • This has touched me. I couldn’t finish reading – my loss is still too new. We bathed and lotioned my sister and dressed her in a summer dress she would have loved. It felt like we participated in an ancient ritual. Even though it’s been a year I’m still a little shaky, the grief comes in waves, but I know we honored my sister well.

  • We, too, were late to watch “March of the Penguins” and as I read the first part of this post, I thought, “Hmmm…that’s funny…I only remember the beautiful parts of that film…” I’d completely forgotten how much tragedy was in the story, having been overtaken by the beauty that was carried in those penguin spirits. Patti, this is a remarkable post, and a deeply honoring one. I thought of my 17-year-old stepbrother who died as the result of a car accident…and how it was clear to me when he was in a coma as I watched the respirator move his body up and down that his spirit had already left its temporary temple (and was probably watching us, watch ‘him.’) Thank you for, once again, touching us in that deepest place…the place of truth. (I can’t send much money, but please know that my small check will be sent with much love.)

  • michelle

    humbled…thank you…

  • Kim

    Just here to nod my head in agreement to what you and Ren have said about the grieving process – it IS a life-long thing. When I was fifteen I watched helplessly as my five-year-old brother was hit by a car. He died instantly. I often think of how his death has changed my life and altered my perspective on so many things. I sometimes write to him on his birthday – a letter or a poem – to remind myself of how much his short life mattered, and to mourn for the man that he never had the chance to become.

    He would have turned 40 in October, and I turned 50 earlier this month. I will no doubt carry this heartache to my grave.

  • Dawn

    thank you for sharing your thoughts and dreams with those around you. as a nonbeliever of many things, it is hard for me to believe that we all have spirits and souls, but reading your words make me doubt that. maybe i should open myself more, even if it is painful to bear the truth of life. the way you have described Meta’s passing is absolutely beautiful. i feel like i was there, a part of the grief and love. the little time i spent at catherine and john’s, on the same land as the ceremony, i could feel the deepness and soulfulness of the place. it is a special place that remembers.
    again, thank you for the humbling moments in which it took me to read your passage. this will change my day and have insight into the future of those who read it.

  • As I sit with tears in my eyes, once again, from the beauty and depth of your post, my two and a half year old comes to the door of my office to say good-bye before a walk with his Nanny. Of course I hug him too hard, I pull him too close, I sniffle as he kisses me, and then gives me eskimo kisses, and then a hand shake, and a deep look into my eyes while touching foreheads – the whole little ritual he has of saying good-bye. And I can’t bear the thought of that ever being final, and yet, somehow I hope that if it had to be, I would treasure each step, and honor each loving memory, and walk towards him as deeply loving as Meta’s family did. Thank you – what a treasure you have become to me, your writing breaks me every time, and then gently puts me back together again, better than I was before.

  • What a stunning story and message. I so appreciate the statement, “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” The story of Meta in life and death is so powerful – thank you for writing this. Much peace, JP

  • Shawn Duff

    Hi Patti,
    That was profound. Meta was my son Kai’s aunt. Thank you for remembering her in such a beautiful way.
    Shawn

  • Patti-

    Thank you for this post and Meta’s story.

    I would have to very much agree that the death of a person doesn’t end the relationship as much as it changes the nature of it.

    I’m writing a post on my blog that will link here.

    Dan

  • MIchael Racine

    Patti and all,

    You all get it. What Meta wants us to know, how she wants us to treat each other, why she is, and each of us can be, an Ambassador of Love.

    Daddio

  • Dear Patti,

    What a blessing and what a gift to get to be touched by the life of glowing Meta, who is “on fire from the inside out” (always, now). How good that her light found its way through you with your tender, appreciative, fearless way of touching the deepest true places of our lives. And blossoming too in all of the beautiful, moving/moved, comments above.

    I love the observation that “death ends a life, not a relationship” and find it fitting my life exactly, too. When my first-born died at 12 weeks old, there was a moment when I realized that the relationship I had with him before birth and after death would be so much longer than his brief lifetime. While the thought was too stunning at the time, in the years since then my sense of him has become, as you describe, something precious and shining, and comforting, too.

    Thank you for all the ways you invite our hearts to break open in love and beauty again and again.

  • Joy R

    As always, thank you for your words and your insight.

  • Helena

    Having known Meta was such a gift, as was losing her. This experience of her physical death has transformed my family into one of awareness rather than avoidance. We now talk about the next loved parent, sibling, or friend who will leave us and face it without too much fear. WE LOVE YOU META!
    Helena and Marc…….

  • words cannot express. i am so utterly, completely, moved i feel transported to another dimension. i will write once the transformation – my new skin – fits a bit better.

    patti – thank you.

  • thank you for sharing this. thank you.

    this idea that we have to adjust to the new relationship that doesn’t involve the physical body. no one has said it to me like that before now. and yes, this is it. and this is what is so hard. the deep, wide pain of it can become a realization that the relationship has shifted.

    so much i want to say as i sit here with tears rolling down my face. but i will just say again, thank you. and that i am hearing you and hearing meta’s story and learning from her spirit.

  • Death doesn’t end the relationship… thank you for sharing these and all of your words. i needed to read them so much today… thank you xo

  • I thank you deeply for this offering and have shared some of your words over at my webl (blog).

  • I sat this morning wrapped in my grief, my fear of the upcoming holidays without my baby girl being her physically… 9.5 years is not long enough, but what is, really? It was certainly long enough for her to know that I’m the right mommy for her, long enough for her light to shine unencumbered, long enough to know that her brother and I are better for having loved her and strong enough to live without her, long enough to appreciate Life and go happily from it to live on the other side with her daddy…
    Ren sent me a link to this post…
    knowing the story of someone else’s beautiful transition from this world would bring me great comfort & it has…
    Thank you for honoring Meta; for honoring the job she continues to do, without her earthly body (God doesn’t fire you just ’cause you’re dead!). I am touched regularly by those who have been inspired by Hannah’s Life and her Death… Her ashes are on a world-wide trek, so no matter where I go, there she is: spiritually and physically.
    Meta’s light is shining upon me and I imagine those two beautiful spirits hanging out with the guys at Heaven’s Taco Bell (where they serve beer and great guitar music — said dh Mitch before his departure) and admiring those of us still here who have so much to learn about life… but not about Love.
    ~diana xoxo

  • Terri

    Meta is my cousin. Although not close, a Bowers is a Bowers and that makes the bond closer than spending time together everyday. I was not able to be there in person for MaryAnn and Raj and the rest of my family. Nothing anyone told me about the weekend could prepare me for the way you have described it. Meta was an exceptional woman and I’m positive she continues to smile on all of us. Thank you for putting into words all that her family thinks of her.

  • My dear friends,

    I have emailed personal messages to each of you who have commented, but wanted to leave a public message to you as well:

    What a gift you have given me and others who come here to 37days. Your comments are a gift, as are you. Your stories, the pain and joy, the incredible capacity you all have to survive and thrive and see meaning is an inspiration to me. The way you talk about loss and being put back together is poetic and gorgeous.

    I know that your holding on to Meta’s story will have meaning for her family, her moms and her Daddio and her brothers and all who love her. Thank you for your insights and understanding and supportive, kind, generous and magical words in which we can all find ourselves.

    Love,
    Patti

  • I co-incidently {not accidently} ran into Meta’s father the morning after her passing. I asked if I could bring my white doves to her ceremony as I knew they would help facilitate the community as a whole letting go of Meta’s spirit. It was a blessing for me to bring in those 21 white doves, 20 for each year of Meta’s life and one for the life she is now beginning.
    The week prior to the memorial was one of the most challenging of my entire year, and when I was given the opportunity to give by releasing my white doves I knew that this was a gift to me. The doves represent the physical releasing into the spiritual journey, upward and on wings of love accompanied by the flock who represent all those who wish to see her off on her new journey.
    Meta met me in my dreams the other morning and she took my hand for a moment and we flew with incredible speed into a tunnel of light. I came back immediately and I knew why Meta went towards the light.
    I choose to thank Meta and all of you who have participated in this journey of continuing life for allowing me to be a part of an awakening that has changed the way we will send off the one’s we love forever.

  • joan

    “And we are put on earth a little space,
    that we may learn to bear the beams of love.”

    -Wm Blake

  • I am coming to this late. A time for everything… Now my eys are full of tears. I will write more later.

    Thank you Patti!

    Thank you all for your comments, the relationship is indeed continuing.

  • Joy

    Wow, Patti!

    Thank you for sharing Meta’s story. I know so many are being touched and transformed by your powerful gift of writing. Thank you, Meta, for your love and light that continues to shine. In February, my mom will have been gone for three years. Cancer is a horrible thing. But because of what you wrote, I realize how lucky I was to hear her tell me she loved me on the day she passed away, and how I told her I loved her, too. I had prayed for a sign to let me know she made it to the other side, and the next day, God had sent a rainbow that spread across the sky. Whenever I see one, I am reminded that her love and light still shine, and that she will never leave me. Thanks for the courage to post the truth . . .

  • I had tried to leave a comment earlier, but somehow it must have failed to go through. You inspired me to write a short bit at my own blog on death….though I feel intimidated to even mention it after reading your words that have sung a bittersweet melody to my spirit once again.

    You are an enchantress, weaving truth with those gossamer threads called words. I am blessed to have “met you”….even if only online.

    Thank you.

  • jylene

    patti– i read this post last week with tears running down my face. (man, did i look like hell when i got to work) i was too emotional and overwhelmed to write a comment in that moment. you did a beautiful, poetic justice to this family’s story. their grace in that difficult time blew me away. but when i read things like this, i can’t help but imagine myself in their place, living in the unbearable aftermath of a loss that i can’t believe i would survive. i look at my own beautiful daughters (as i’m sure you do) and i don’t know how people go on when the unthinkable happens to them. this story was surely inspirational, as well as educational. i never knew that options such as these existed. thank you for writing it , hard as it was to read, and bless that exceptional group of family and friends for sharing it with us.

  • this is incredibly powerful. thank you.

  • wow this is so beautiful and powerful.. thank you for sharing this incredible story of love.

  • Thank you.

    Wow. Potent.

    Blessed be Meta and the hearts that surround her.

  • Marilyn Wilson

    Patti,

    Thank you for your words and thoughts about Meta. Our small group of “friends of the family” had a memorial gathering here in Florida in honor of Meta’s life. We merged our love with the love felt for Meta from so many others.

    Thanks again.
    Marilyn

  • Linda

    Thank you for sharing this very most profound life event. I honestly have never heard of such a funeral, if you will, but was deeply touched by the details. What a wonderful thing. I can’t find the words to describe the warm and full feeling reading this has left in my heart.

  • A glorious, remarkable leave-taking

    Patti Digh begins her essay Forever hold your penguin dear with that quote which she attributes to Jack Lemmon…. It is a story so beautiful and so raw and so very intensely real that it breaks my heart and heals it all at the same time.

  • MIchael Racine

    Dear ones,

    Thank you all for your expressions of support and awe for what was done at Meta’s passing. Knowing Meta is honored by so many brings so much peace. Now her beautiful mother has need of our good will. Please visit MaryAnneBowers at caring bridge.org and continue the flow of love. I’ve asked “Why” so many times lately and usually there’s only more questions. Meta knows the answers but, just like when she was little, we have a hard time understanding what she’s saying.
    You make a difficult situation differant.

    Michael

  • patricia

    found this in my roundabout way — by tomorrow eve, my daughter will have attended two wakes and two funerals since last night…another horrible crash with a 20 yo boy and his 19 yo passenger…a week ago tonight…i will be blogging about it at some point — it’s been a hard week…i’ve sent this post to my daughter so hopefully she and others may find some comfort in it — thank you…

  • Sam Morgan

    Reading all of this warms my heart. Everytime I hear someone speak of Meta’s overflowing love, an image of her comes to mind. She is smiling. She is shining with a joy that I only know, from knowing her. I know Meta is huge now. I know she has the biggest smile on her face. And the light that’s shining from her is so, very bright. I love you Meta.

  • abby hearne

    I want to thank you for this. I was in east africa when meta passed, and it was impossible for me to process, being so far away, feeling so helpless and heartbroken. But her light and her love helped me through the hardest times, the most challenging experiences during my months there, and i thank her for that and for every single smile she ever gave me. I love you, meta. You are always in my heart. love forever, abby

  • Weedie

    About ten years ago, my husband & I read (separately) the autopsy report of our precious little boy. The report arrived months after his death (on Thanksgiving morning) and our quest for knowing why (we still don’t) had dulled…we just missed him terribly and knowing why he died would not lessen our yearning for him. Later, when we were able to talk with one another about what we had read, there was only one thing…”he arrived clad only in a disposable diaper.” Heartbreaking. We were first time parents. Absolutely heartbreaking.

    This beautiful story that has so spoken to my heart was posted the day before the tenth anniversary of his death. I’ll never stop missing my beautiful boy.

    God forbid that I should lose another of my “dear penquins,” but should it come to pass ~ I will better know how to embrace the sacred.

    Thank you.

  • Sam Morgan

    Happy b day meta! minus a day

  • Ignore all your best laid blogging plans

    The sheer beauty of the blogosphere is the opportunity to be touched, captivated, moved, enthralled, and riveted by the creativity of our fellow globe-sharing homo sapiens. Patti Dighs Forever Hold Your Penguin Dear was one such experience for m…

  • Wonderful imagery, connections and reminders. Thanks for putting this story into words as in some way it touches each of us.

  • meta

    How do you pronounce her name?

    My name is Meta too, I’m not kidding.
    We pronounce it “May-duh”
    I am 14
    I found this site, because I was looking up my name in google, and happened upon this.

    I don’t know what this is about, but it sounds like Meta was a wonderful and well-loved person. I will keep you in my prayers.

  • Mary Anne Bowers

    Hello Meta, Wow it feels strangely wonderful to wrote that greeting. I am this Meta’s mother. We pronounced her name just as you do . Thank you for writing. Yes , our Meta was indeed “well-loved”. I would be happy to exchange some correspondence with you. If you reply back and ask Patti (the blogger) to pass my address to you.
    Sincerely, Mary Anne

  • Meta

    Hi,
    This is the Meta that posted about a year ago, May 11th. I searched my name in google again today, which is a strange coincidence I think, and I found this again. I realize I never checked back here to see how my comment might have affected this article. I am 15 now, and according to the article, I believe Meta would be 22, right? I looked at the comments, ad I saw that the last one was written late 2007, so I hope that ths site is still viewed, and my comment will not be useless. I will still hold you, Meta, and your family in my prayers.
    Sincerely, Meta

  • Justin H

    Hi I was a Friend of meta, She was a Strong individual and a very uplifting person. I knew her awhile when she was dating Noah got to know her pretty good. Just wanted to say how much i miss ya Meta and all my love is with you Love Justin

  • • A strong man will struggle with the storms of fate.

  • • The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, make them.

  • Liz

    This article still impacts me to this day.

  • E

    Meta was a dear friend to me…there is not a day that passes that i don’t remember her spirit and miss her more than i can even begin to describe. I would give anything just to hear her breathe. We had not talked in a couple months, and she called me around dinner time the night of her accident. She left me a long message trying to catch up, and wondered if we could hang out that night….i didn’t see the call or voicemail until the next day when i realized she had passed. i cannot help but think that if i had seen her call and called her back none of this would have happen. it is a thought that haunts me every single day…i listened to that voicemail over and over and over again for weeks…unable to grasp the reality…5 years later and i still feel the same…any helpful words would be amazing. this story truelly touched me in ways i can’t even percieve.

  • Lindsay Boykin

    This is so beautifully written that it was comforting and delightful for me to read it. I will never forget it. I will read it many times more. Thank you so much for doing this. 

  • I am stunned by this. Stunned, awestruck … my body’s instinct is to double over, partly to express reverence to this moment you describe, these people, Meta herself, you for writing it, and partly out of gut-wrenching, palpable fear over losing my own daughter this, or any other, way. This is gonna stay with me a long, long time. 

  • Dana Boyle

    Patti.  

    First, the writing is unmatched.  

    Second, I am writing with tear streaked cheeks.  How touching, rawly human, and full of love and wisdom this post and experience is.  I have always been like this essay explains, someone who fears dead bodies, and who wants to run from viewings when those close to me pass on…and I’ve experienced near-death, so it’s puzzling that I would still feel that way.  Must be so ingrained.  My best friend is from Poland, and she describes how they care for their dead much this way, and her family was appalled when her little brother died at 24 and they had to abide by laws about how his remains would be cared for.  Maybe we wouldn’t be so fearful of death or the sick or the dying or vacant bodies if this were part of our life ritual.  

    Third, I’ll tell you what this has done for me.  I have lost two babies before birth…both in utero.  I am trying to conceive again and bring a child into this life – into a body that is born into the world.  What this essay did is help me  see it backward.  I’ll tell you that even losing the promise of a baby – a tiny being inside your womb – when their remains appear, all you have is love (grief, yes) and a desire to care for those remains the way you’d care for that child.  I can’t imagine it’s any different at any other stage or age.  At just six weeks gestation, I carried the remains of my “child” carefully, packed up lovingly, seatbelted and cooled, to be tested so that he might save the lives of his future siblings, or of his mother.  This essay and this family’s ritual helps me see how they ushered their beloved daughter OUT of her body…something nobody should ever have to do.  It makes it easier to see more clearly how to usher my child IN.  

    So incredibly touched.  Thank you for sharing and for doing so with the depth of love and gratitude you did.

    Dana

  • […] diagnose Tess with Asperger’s. It was Catherine who was friends with Mary Anne, the mother of Meta, a young woman who died far too young. Mary Anne used to sing Naomi Shihab Nye’s songs to her […]

  • […] here.  (Please note the link is an account of home funeral preparations for an adult […]

  • Thank you so much for sharing this. It was like reading a beautiful, breathtaking poem. You honored Meta perfectly!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *