Call Me Again, Please

Machine transcript. It may have small errors.

Hi there. This is Mike Slavin. I'm the curator of Down the Rabbit Hole. That is where basically all of you will have discovered this audio file that you are listening to right now. So Down the Rabbit Hole attempted to start this podcast called Where Wonder Went. The first episode was exactly a year ago. I went on to record two additional episodes. So a year later, here we are on our fourth episode. Perhaps the volume will increase in this next year of this podcast's life. Very sad publication schedule compared to my uh frequency and near religiosity with publishing down the rabbit hole every week. But there's actually a really, I think, interesting and meaningful story that explains, you know, from my side, where Wonder Went went. And so today is actually a special day in the history of Down the Rabbit Hole. It is the six-year anniversary. Six years ago, I started Down the Rabbit Hole, and every week since I have published an issue inviting people to discover wonder in their lives, offering an image of the week to remind them of the strange, almost alien-like pockets of weirdness that exist on this earth to hopefully help shake us and wake us up to the beauty that is around us, and you know, unique words to help us uh sort of explore the relationship to language and how when we have a word for something, it can open up that space of perception to begin to uh attend to it when before, without the word, it was easy to gloss over. And then, of course, my own writing, quotes from thinkers I respect, and fascinating links that I uncover as I surf the internet. So most of you will know all of that, having you know arrived here as a reader of Down the Rabbit Hole. Um, but the important thing, the sort of um tragic serendipity of this, this has been an important project for me personally to do all this and keep this drum beat alive. No matter what is occurring in my life, I continue to surface and explore and um you know identify these little pieces of of wonder, these shards of enchantment that I can uh share with you, but also um, you know, take into my own world and and and make sure that despite the fluctuations of my life, I am doing my best to remain connected to the things that are important, and that is not an easy thing to do. As I'm sure all of you are well aware, it is easy to get swept up in the demands of life. And it still happens to me, even even with the um this practice that I've cultivated. Uh, so the tragic part is that the same day I published the first issue of the newsletter uh was the the day that my grandmother, Maisie, passed away. And she was a luminous being, a bright light. I have talked about her on some occasion inside the newsletter and uh in a couple of episodes of this podcast. But um that was now six years ago that she passed away. Uh, she lived to be uh 102 years old, nearly 103. She was 40 days shy of that milestone. So um today she she would have been 108, nearly 109, born in 1917, lived through two pandemics. She actually caught COVID and was asymptomatic. So that is not what took her out. But um yeah, her life was sort of book-ended by pandemics, which is a wild thing to consider. Um and so, you know, coming up on these anniversaries is always a strange sort of cocktail of feeling, a sense of um gratitude and um excitement that I've maintained, you know, the publishing of this newsletter and kept this thread of wonder alive for myself and for those of you who continue to read it. Um, but also it's a reflection on the loss. And I am very grateful that I got so much time with my grandmother, my my brother and I, our our births. Uh she was 70, uh 70 or so when I was born. Um so I think having grandchildren enter into her life really gave her a second wind and really was uh part of what contributed to her longevity. I think it just really um gave her this newfound uh joy to watch, you know, these these two little boys and then later um her uh a set of three granddaughters on on um you know my from from my my uncle when they came into the world. Now she had you know these five grandchildren to to participate in their lives. And uh boy did she. She was a very special character in my life, very special figure. My dad used to drop me off um at her house, and I would just she would sit in her rocking chair, and I would sit across from her on the love seat that was in her living room, and we would just talk, and we would just speak about what was happening in my life and things that she knew and and things that happened in her life, and you know, just how the family was. And it was a good, you know, it was just a moment to connect with an adult without any other activity present, nothing else going on, um, aside from you know, snacking on the bowl of Werther's original caramels that she uh always had. That candy seems to be associated with uh the elderly for some reason, or at least that's my association with it, and she always had those at her disposal. Um, so there's something very nostalgic to me about Werther's originals. I might have to go pick some up in honor of her today. Um, and so this is, you know, she was a special, a very special person, and I appreciate you for entertaining me as I um, you know, talk about this because she really imparted in me a sense of inherent goodness. She reflected that to me. She saw something in me that um lives in me today, and that you know, her her presence, her physical presence has has long left this world, but her impact and the lingering emotional impression that she left on me, on my spirit, uh, and and as a consequence, my life as it ripples out from me is uh very real and very much still here. And so, although her, you know, her physical vessel has passed on from this world, her legacy is very much present, and the impact that she left is something that I will hold with me until the day that I die, and hopefully I can pass on that legacy to others in my life and leave a similar impact the way that she impacted me. So I share all of this as context for my explanation around why I um just kind of could not maintain this podcast recording. And in the first episode, I made a commitment to uh take this laptop that I had, where I was convinced that the laptop had fried, that the hard drive was gone, and I couldn't access anything. I I said that I would go and get it looked at by someone and see if I could recover a file that was on there. And that file was the last conversation that I had with my grandmother, uh, in which the last I love you between us was exchanged. So something that I thought I had lost. So um I actually pursued um that, and I took the laptop down the road and and uh had it inspected by a computer repair man or whatever you would call him. And he began looking into it, and it was actually the day of her 108th birthday that he told me that it looked like the recovery would work. And and so it was this sort of you know, smiling on me, this moment of wow, like you know, if such interesting timing that I get that message on that same day. Um and it was a few days later that I was able to pick up the hard drive and then plug it in, and then you know, dig through the all the litany of files that he was able to recover along with it, having a few a few sort of near misses where my heart sank, where I tried to play the file and it wouldn't play, eventually finding the appropriate file. And I pressed play and proceeded to have a quite the emotional experience listening to this. Um, you know, having been convinced that this conversation was lost and completely erased, to have it recovered and to relive that conversation, not fully present to the significance of that conversation while I was having it. On the other side of her leaving this world, to listen to it um was very, very moving. And um it doesn't go on long. It wasn't you know a super extended conversation. It was in the midst of COVID, um, and she was you know in in quarantine. This was a difficult time. And what um the the sort of what's the saying? The thorn in this, in this uh rose bush here, I had forgotten that this occurred, um, and I don't know if I repressed it or just it just the content of the conversation just left my mind.

We exchange I love you's and then um you know she very tenderly says, Call me again, please. Not with any sense of pressure, she wasn't twisting my arm, just making a genuine request out of love. And um I went from feeling a sense of elation to hear that last I love you to have to have um to then feel a sense of um just sadness and sense that I had failed her.

This was uh yeah, very difficult thing for me to swallow emotionally. This was she was such an important person to me, and um, you know, this was the last time I was able to reach her. Now I did have memory of reaching out to her, um, but not being able to make contact. As time went on, as her life went on, she um, you know, there was a bit of dementia that was beginning to deteriorate her cognitive faculties, and she began hiding her hearing aids and making it um, you know, just difficult to, you know, she wouldn't hear the phone would ring. And but even, you know, I don't say that to excuse it because I I could have found ways to reach her. Um and yeah, I just felt this this sting, this real sting and shame that this woman who had poured into me so beautifully that I couldn't, you know, muster uh that ability to have made contact with her again, you know, at least once more before she left this world. And um, you know, when she passed, it all happened so quickly. And um yeah, it's just it was just been one of those things that I am to to this day grappling with and um hoping to, you know, transform that experience into something, you know, of a lesson, of a piece of wisdom, of something that I could make beautiful, make mean something. And I'm not there yet. I think I still am just uh I feel grief around it, and I feel like I let her down and um had a hard time even sharing this with anyone living uh for some time. Eventually spoke with my dad, who is really the only person alive who I feel like might have something to say about it, and you know, he just reminded me of just brought my attention to the difficulty of making contact with her toward the end. But um, but uh I share all of this to hopefully um maybe move some hearts if you have someone in your life today who um perhaps isn't long for this world or who you haven't talked to in a while. It's all so unpredictable, and we never know when our last goodbye will be. And so um perhaps my grief could move you to reach out and to make a contact. I think that could be a beautiful thing. Um But I share this to honor her and on the day that she passed and to say that I'm sorry I'm sorry, Grandma and to try to proceed forth in my life with this you know, this knowledge of this preciousness and to do my best uh to reach out to the people who are in my life who um you know I may lose and I don't know how long they're here.

So on that note, I think that you know there is an interesting jumping off point around grief and the sort of embrace grief has with wonder, because uh obviously grief is very much uh enmeshed with death, and um death is enmeshed with life, and when you ponder the mystery of death, you ponder the mystery of life. These things are inextricable and go hand in hand, and so in encountering grief and encountering loss, I've I've thought about this relationship, the way that our grief and the way that you know, the way that we experience loss, how it can bring forth a real appreciation and sense of wonder for the life that we have, and the gift that is our feet on this earth and our eye contact with those that that we love. And this is one of the gifts that grief holds in its hands is that reconnection to the preciousness of life. It's easy to get swept up in racing forward through time as we try to make something of ourselves or try to accomplish our goals or try to resolve whatever insufficiencies we feel we have in the present moment, try to escape that. But there is a preciousness to our life in this current instant, in this blink of time.

Loss can really re can can put all of that in perspective and give us a refreshed context, a renewed awareness around our life, where the loudness of those insufficiencies and the speed of time can begin to slow, and we can become acquainted with the moment as it is, not for its insufficiencies, but for its beauty and the brilliance of the gift of life, not generally, but precisely and particularly right now.

So that is part of what I have come to contemplate as I've you know gone through this loss of my grandmother, but as I've navigated other losses, it is a an emotional um stripping down. It can make us feel naked in the face of this vast mystery that is our lives, um, but at that same time presence us to all that is that we've have, all that all that is all that it is that we have yet to lose. And that puts all of the gifts that we that we hold in our arms, but our arms have fallen asleep to it because we've gotten so comfortable holding them, or so these things that are so familiar to us, they arrive um, you know, back in our perception, so that we can take stock in them and appreciate them and um be happy for these things that that are easy to take for granted because they are so commonplace and so much a part of our life. Just this next breath, these conversations that we have on a daily basis that are just routine and mundane. But when that when the ability to have that conversation is taken away, it it puts it all in such it it puts it in a light um of glory, so to speak. So I I'm not sure if um how frequently I will continue to record these messages. Um it felt important to record one today in honor of the loss of my grandmother and just to say this, to say that I experienced this and to um offer it to the world as a part of my own process and uh in hopes that maybe it is supportive and useful and helpful for others, and maybe it will open some doors, create some beauty that I will not ever see, um, but would be glad to hold the hope that it could possibly exist as a consequence of uh this grief that I have felt.

So I um yeah, I share all that to just spread the memory of my grandmother and um you know the beauty that she cast into my life. And I hope that you enjoy these newsletters that I write and that I will continue to write. And uh, you know, hopefully this might now that I've moved past this emotion, um, well, maybe not move past it, but have at least stepped into the arena and expressed it, I will find a way to record more of these messages and find different angles to speak about this topic of wonder um and all of all of the facets to that jewel. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to this message. And I um yeah, wherever you are and whatever you're doing in this moment, I hope uh I hope you find a sparkle to it and something that you can appreciate. Thank you for listening.