The Weight Of Light: Bedtime Story

Today's story - what would you do if you felt the feelings of everyone around you?

This is a story of grief carried and grief released, and the unexpected grace of both.

A story that encourages us to feel deeply and also release what no longer serves us.

Music generously provided by Sakartvelo.

Transcript

Hello dear ones, And welcome to today's bedtime story. The weight of light. A story of grief carried on. And breathe, Release. And the unexpected grace of both. Rosa Mendes had been carrying the weight of other people's grief for so long that she had forgotten what lightness felt like. This was not metaphorical. When someone near her was overwhelmed by sorrow. The deep specific sorrow of loss. Rosa could feel it as a physical sensation. Settling on her shoulders and chest like a garment put on against her will. It was heavy. It was warm. And it was accompanied always by a luminosity that Rosa described to no one. Because she had no language for it. A visible quality to the grief. Seen by her alone. A particular gold and shadow. That told her not just that someone was grieving. But how they were grieving. And what they needed. It had begun when her father died. She was 19, A student in Mexico City. And on the day of the funeral, She had looked around at the people gathered in the small church. And seeing each of them lit with their own particular grief. Her mother in a hard, Cold silver. Her aunt in a soft, Unfocused blue. The neighbour who had never much cared for her father, But came out of decency. Whose grief was a thin, Pale green. That was mostly guilt rather than loss. She had thought at first that it was the shock. That she was seeing things because her brain was overwhelmed. But the months passed and the ability did not leave her. It deepened. It grew more precise. And began to operate at greater distances. She learned to manage it. She became almost inevitably a grief counsellor. Because of her gift. Because the work gave the gift a context, Gave the weight a purpose. She knew things about her clients that she could not have known from words alone. She knew the quality of their grief. It's shape. It's movement. She knew when it was ready to shift. And when it needed more time. She was exceptionally good at her job. She was also at 44. Profoundly tired. His name was David Chen. He was 51, A civil engineer. And he had not cried in three years. Not since his son, Will, Had died. Will had been twenty-two. The circumstances were not relevant to the story. What was relevant was the specific quality of David's grief when Rosa first saw him. Not gold and shadow. Not silver or blue. But a colour she had no name for. Something between amber and iron. Dense and very still. The colour of something that had solidified. He had been referred to Rosa by his GP who had seen him intermittently over three years and described him as coping in the careful way that doctors sometimes describe patients they are worried about. He came to his first session in a blue suit. Sat upright in the chair. And spent 45 minutes answering her questions with the furriness of a man accustomed to technical documentation. He described his son's death. He described the years since. He described in precise and measured terms that he was functioning well. Work was busy. He had recently taken up running. He had a good relationship with his daughter and son-in-law. And he saw his friends once a month on average. He had, He said. Process the loss appropriately. Rosa listened to him and watched the amber iron colour of his grief. Which was not moving. Which had not moved possibly in three years. When he finished, She said. You've described everything you've done since Will died. Could you tell me one thing you have felt? In love with her. The amber iron deepened slightly, Pulsed once. I feel, He said, After a long pause. Like I'm carrying something very heavy all the time. Even when I'm running. Even when I'm sleeping. I wake up and it's there. I just don't know what to do with it. What shape is it? Rosa asked. The thing you are carrying. You thought about this. Round, " he said. Like a stone. That warm, Rosa felt the weight on her own shoulders shift slightly. Not lighter, But different. She recognised what she was carrying for him. She had carried this before for others. That is not grief, She said. That is love. The love you have for wealth. That now has nowhere to go. David Chen looked at her with an expression she had not seen on him before. Not the expression of someone giving a technical briefing. But of someone who has heard a sentence that explains something they have been trying to understand for three years. His eyes suddenly fill with tears. And then, For the first time in three years, He wept. Quietly. With his hands folded in his lap. With a dignity that Rosa found one of the most moving things she had ever witnessed. The amber-iron colour of his brief began very slowly to move. It was Rose's supervisor, An older woman named Dr. Patricia Walsh. Who eventually said the thing Rosa had not let herself see. They met monthly for supervision. This was standard practice for therapists, A professional requirement. A space to discuss cases without identifying details, And to monitor the therapist's own well-being. Rosa valued these sessions. She had always been scrupulous about them. How are you? Patricia asked in their November session. And something in the way she asked it. With a particular kind of attention. Made Rosa pause before giving her usual answer. Tired Rosa Sands. More than usual. Hmm, I think so, Yes. Patricia was quiet for a moment. Rosa, You have been doing this work for 16 years. You carry a great deal. Not just professionally. I think you carry things that other people can't feel. I think your gift is real and valuable. But also heavy. And I wonder if you've been so focused on helping others release their grief. That you haven't looked at what you are carrying yourself. Rosa sat with this for a while. She had lost her father at 19. She had lost her best friend to cancer at 31. She had lost, In the way that years accumulate losses, Dozens of smaller things. Relationships, Possibilities. Versions of herself she'd had to set aside. She had been carrying these things with the same care and attentiveness she brought to the grief of her clients. I don't know how to not carry it, " she said. It's what I do. It's how I help. You can carry grief and also put it down, " Patricia said. Not abandon it. Not forget it. Just let yourself put it down sometimes. Rest. Let someone carry something for you for a change. Rosa looked at the window. Outside November was going about its grey and purposeful business. That might be the hardest thing I've ever tried to do, " she said quietly. I know. But you teach people to do it every day. I suspect you know how. Rosa started a garden in February. This was, Objectively, A poor month to start a garden in central Mexico City, Where she had moved back to five years ago. But the impulse arrived and she followed it, Buying pots and soil from a market store and crowding them onto her small terrace. Planting seeds for things she had always meant to grow and never gotten around to. Herbs. A small lemon tree. A variety of marigold with a name she couldn't pronounce, But that the market stall owner had assured her was particularly resilient. She thought of it as an experiment in having something that was just hers. Not work, Not client, Not gift. Just pots of soil and seeds and the daily practice of paying attention to something small and growing. David Chen sent her, As he sometimes did with former clients who had explicitly agreed to occasional updates, A brief note in March. He had signed up to volunteer with a bereavement support group in his neighbourhood. He had found it difficult, He said, And also necessary. He had started talking to his daughter about Will. With the warmth and the laughter and the grief, All present at once. He had been running a 10k, He said, And had started to cry somewhere around the 7km mark. And he had kept running anyway. Rosa read the note on her terrace in the March morning sun. With a cup of coffee and the small lemon tree beside her. Which had developed, Against all reasonable expectation for February planting, Three small bright leaves. She felt the weight on her shoulders, Which was always there. Which would probably always be there. And she felt something else alongside it. Not an absence of the weight. But a new lightness that existed in parallel with it. The way dawn exists alongside the last of the night. The two together. Grief and its luminosity. Wait. And the grace of setting some of it down. She thought of her father, Dead 25 years. Whose grief she still carried like a warm stone. She thought of him with love. And with something that was not quite sadness. And in the particular gold of the morning, She thought she saw, Just briefly, The colour she had always associated with him. Warm and clear and moving. The colour of a grief that had finally begun very gently to breathe. She planted another pot. Outside the city was waking up. Full of its ordinary griefs and its ordinary joys. And Rosa Mendes sat in the March light and tended her garden and rested. And was, For this moment, At least. Not carrying anyone's weight but her own. Which was she had finally learned. More than enough.