It started with some bittersweet dreams, but May Day — and some checking revealed that this date might be fitting — brought with it a reaching out across that apparently thin veil from some people who passed on suddenly last summer, only now evoking a mid-summer night’s dream, and a group from earlier on who paved the way for the more recent ones.
It seemed, indeed, that they wanted me to join them. And the framework of why now was given by themes pervading the music of a heavy metal icon who passed away over a decade ago.
So three layers of departure stepped forward in far less than 24 hours, that ended fittingly, I think, on a Sunday morning.
— Thought(s) for the day(s). And it’s about the day(s). My beloved screen saver new thingee told me that May 1 is the first day of Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2022. Also, earlier this year was (play your) Jukebox Day, (Capitalism motive). Wait, aren’t there a lot more music lovers broadly speaking, than those type of Islanders (and not New York). Shouldn’t that order be flip-flopped and we have a whole such music month? But wait just a minute, the former also encompassed Asian Americans, so I guess my theory was a Shot In The Dark. While I’m at skewering people, I reminded myself of a plea made on social media when a particular enclave ended up on the wrong end of the shtick on a certain issue: “Lake Elmo people are people too.” Uhm, are you sure? C’mon man, you’re telling me those (hefty) Iowans are the only ones we can make light of … —
This thus was a weekend marking remembrance of spring renewal and a halfway point of the sun year, International Workers Day and the well-known pilot’s signal of May day, May day, to show their distress is real. Ah, distress.
It also for me became a time to give memory for in many cases really the first time, to those who have passed on months ago, and in some cases longer, but not to the degree of a day of the dead. But now accentuate the positive fully.
Thus it did leave me, after a half-day process rang through completely, to have a burst of renewal. Have a pint for that midpoint?
But first I needed to do my homework.
Online information gained in several different searches was helpful, and although it provided a framework for dealing with individual situations and ways to grieve, it gave lots of detail. When offering condolences, timing is vital, from immediately to after months, and I was away for the summer when some loved ones passed. But the upshot was clear, write letters and notes to them, think of them and make it be known the fact that they will be remembered, recall specific warm memories — like the cheesy photo of Danyiel in her snakeskin pants on a Harley, and yes I was able to get it published — and even “talk” to them. I had not done this, I had not even taken time to grieve in any of those cases, just went to the next step of life, rather than acknowledging death. My mental way of doing this was, typical for me, a combination of telepathic message, prayer to them also, and meditation. It was short and sweet, but conveyed what had long been needed to convey, if only in short form. (I kept thinking immediately afterward, is there another facet they I have forgotten to stick in, did I emphasize the key points enough). And writing this post sealed the rest of the deal, and I will get some closure to this part of the process by adding for each of them this omission: I love you.
It was 6 p.m. on April 30 and although dog tired — like Ozzy asking in song why darkness is overdue? — I feared another sleepless night. So I took two different forms of sleep meds, the recommendations for dosage of the 25 mg of that one I can’t pronounce, and 10 mg of melatonin, and a half can of NA beer. Did this sway what I experienced in near sleep, or is there more to the story?
I kept getting this feeling of quickly being pulled toward the abyss through knock-dead fast sleep, and have to mentally fight it off — or should I? — and later when May Day arrived, deciphered this could have been a means for those summer people to have me come join them in an afterlife. Strange, but not unprecedented, but I wondered since this was the first May Day after those Big Three had passed on last summer …
So I googled like only I can google to get a handle on this, as this is what I and almost all in our internet-based society come to do in times of trouble: Is May Day a time when people who are deceased reach out to the living?
The answer was interesting as there was a pagan religion that stressed the belief, through an observance called Beltane, that May Day was a time when the year is divided in half between light and darkness. This resonated. Why? Another part of the death picture on last night was that, as an introduction to it from favorite rock lyricist Ronnie James Dio who died over a decade ago, and was a friend of a friend, his words of the interplay between light and darkness spawned many an album. This spun off to dreams where in the process of counting my batches of coins, which I kept on finding in new places, I had to enter the houses of such people while having a limited time to look, and not have materialism overshadow the main theme of the day — a parade/funeral that featured music. Prior to this in the dream I had the first few digits for my bank account number appear before me, and an invitation to try to remember the rest. I declined, for fear I would remember them in the wrong order. Meaning? There were many events we’d all wanted to get tickets to and attend in order to bond much further, but with finances always extremely tight, never could because there was never even a Benjamin to throw to it. (That denomination is chosen with purpose, and yes I remember the instance — with more then one person).
An alert for a later and related post: The deep meaning behind such things, in many different layers, as the Slayer song, Seasons in the Abyss. Much more as I eventually segue into that type of lyrical analysis.