Haiku-ing Through Sadness

I had the privilege of kid-sitting Griffin the Nephew and Amelia the Niece on Thursday night. As part of our time together, we watched a couple of episodes of America’s Funniest Videos. We laughed super hard at the ones involving animals and babies, but we didn’t laugh so hard at the ones where people got hurt or where the camera person staged the whole scene. What we figured out was that the funniest moments tend to happen unplanned—like when Amelia told me that she would sleep in her parents’ king-size bed with me if I just had an off volume switch—or when she looked at a small group of fish and announced that they must be a home-school of fish—or like Sunday night when I was literally so sad that I could do nothing but lay in my bed, wrapped in my blanket, and…write…haiku. Yes. Haiku.

I struggle with goodbyes. Anyone who knows me knows this much. I’ve gotten better with goodbyes over the past few years. I’ve come to accept—more fully—that people come and go and that that is okay—even needed. Yet goodbyes are still hard—especially when they are said to a lot of people at once and/or to people I call friend and respect—and that has happened three times over the past three weeks.

On Sunday night, I told Mister Pastor Patrick and his beautiful wife Courtney goodbye. As part of their sending off, I worked with Rebecca the Great Children’s Minister to create a painting for them. On the back of the painting, as I was trying to write a nice little note to accompany Rebecca’s declaration that “Beca and Dee hate Texas” (which is where they are going), I found myself writing a haiku that went along with the day’s worship service, the last line of which expresses what Patrick wanted to say to the congregation and what I wanted to say to him and Courtney:

Faith. Hope. Love. Believe.
Simple words. Never more true.
I believe in you.

I suppose that a haiku tree sprouted in me with those words and kept growing last night when nothing else in me could move:

1.
Willow tree weeping
Rain falling softly off leaves
Body slumped to ground

2.
Faith hope love remain
The greatest of these is love
Love one another

3.
Paralyzed nothing
Lying prostrate on the ground
I am very sad

4. (modified form)
“Don’t be sad that it’s over—
Be glad it happened”
I think I’ll be both.

5.
So much to be done.
Work stares at me, calls my name.
Not now. Tomorrow.

6.
Ignore everything.
Lay in bed and write haiku.
Wish for a Genie.

7. (modified form)
People are leaving.
I feel real sadness.
Please don’t tell me I shouldn’t.

8.
My partner is gone.
I don’t know where to begin.
Without you? Blank space.

9.
My mom does not cry.
Except when profoundly moved.
You are quite special.

And then today:

10.
The morning after
A night of sleep didn’t bring you back
Equally as hard

11.
Hey Mister Pastor
You challenged me to be a
Better me. Thank you.

12. (Title: Mountain Lake)
Breathe in cool, crisp air
Lay back in peaceful waters
Tension fades away

Funny, huh? That rhythmic words are all I can find right now. I guess maybe it’s a way to find structure and order when so much feels like it’s falling apart?

This is a strange gift
Writing haiku through sadness
But I guess it works