Oh No No No Bisnonno How Could You?

Dear Bisnonno Pasquale,

I am meditating this morning, when once again I AM FLOODED WITH YOU!

All of a sudden, while chanting the "OHHHH" sound that corresponds to the heart chakra,

I have an even deeper insight into your son Francis' death.

I keep chanting the "OH" sound, which reverberates around my heart, and all of a sudden I open my journal and start writing: "Wait...GUILT...of course you felt GUILTY!

"You let your son, only seven, and your grandsons, ages four and three,

PLAY NEAR A BUSY STREET? MY GOD BISNONNO

HHHHHHOW COULD YOU? HOW COULD YOU?"

THIS WAS A BUSY STREET -- right across the street from a baseball field -- WHERE THERE WERE SO MANY MANY CARRRRRRRRRRRRS GOING BY!"

I feel like I am shrieking onto paper.

And then I open my mouth and I SHOUT OUT LOUD:

"WHAT THE HELL, WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO DO THAT?

WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?"

I stop shouting. I realize that I am angry, angry at you, Bisnonno,

and ANGRY AT ME

BECAUSE I AM YOU AND I AM ME TOO

and perhaps I/you are also angry at your wife, Bisnonna Caterina, and your daughters too, none of whom were watching out for Francis!

How could all of you stand by while Francis played in a place where he could get hurt?

I START SHOUTING OUT LOUD AGAIN:

"MY GOD WOULD YOU GIVE THEM CIGARETTES TO SMOKE?

WOULD YOU LET THEM PLAY WITH OPEN FLAMES?"

OH MY HEART MY HEART MY HEART OH MY ACHING HEART!

I BLAME MYSELF BECAUSE I AM TO BLAME I AM TO BLAME I AM HIM HE IS ME and we are

crying our heart out

our heart,

which is split open like an apple

(Bisnonno Pasquale Orzo, age 53, and his only son, Francis, age 2 and 1/2.)

Bisnonno, your precious son never never ever needed to die this way

BISNONNO, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, I WOULDN'T DREAM OF LETTING MY PRECIOUS RONEN,

OR MY DARLING GRANDDAUGHTER DANI GO ANYWHERE NEAR THE GODDAMN STREET WITHOUT HOLDING TIGHTLY ONTO THEIR HANDS OR STANDING RIGHT BESIDE THEM!!

BECAUSE I AM A VERY VERY RESPONSIBLE

GMA. Grandma.

Sigh.

I stop writing. And shouting. My chest hurts. It burns and aches. I am sweating profusely!

Am I making myself sick FEELING ALL OF THIS ANCIENT EMOTION?

So I STOP. TAKE A BIG BREATH. LET IT OUT. ANOTHER BREATH. In, and out. And then I start to turn this heartbreaking situation around. I take charge of my emotions. I relax. I start meditating again. I focus on the mantra my husband taught me: "Free myself of ego, fill myself with LOVE." I ask for guidance to help me use my energy to turn the situation with Bisnonno arould. I am asking for inspiration to help me heal my ancestors!!!!

After I finish meditating, I write this:

"Bisnonno, we will make you clean again. We will mend your crushed heart. We will take the sin away, wipe away the guilt. WITH ONE SWIFT AND POWERFUL SENTENCE, WE WILL, ALL THESE YEARS LATER,

ERASE THE BLAME

WE WILL MEND YOUR BROKEN HEART. WE WILL END YOUR GUILT AND GRIEF.

And then over top of these words; I pick up a rainbow array of colored pencils and I draw this in my journal: an image of his...broken...heart.

I finish journaling.

I vow that I will stay calm the rest of the day!

******

I move to the sofa. My chest burns. I have PTSD regarding any and all chest pain. Even though my cancer occurred 21 years ago, like all trauma, a visceral memory of it is buried deep in my tissues. I still recoil from any reminders of the illness, which occurred in 2002, when I was diagnosed with lymphoma -- a tumor the size of a cantaloupe sat in the middle of my chest.

That's one reason why I chant the chakras each morning! To keep my heart chakra, and my lung chakra, and all the other energy centers of my body, clear. I've been doing this chanting for 21 years!

My new acupuncturist suggested that whenever I have chest congestion, I should cut a large onion into pieces, lay them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven at 300 degrees. "Let them start to sweat," says Emily Kasten. "And when they do, put them into an old pillowcase and set that on your chest."

I do this now. Almost right away, the burning in my chest eases.

Later, still resting on the sofa, I edit this post. IMMEDIATELY after I finish editing, I open my email, AND THE VERY FIRST EMAIL IS from worldwide meditation expert Jack Kornfield. He is inviting me to listen to a podcast in which he will talk about human suffering and heartache. I am shocked when I turn the podcast on, because I feel like he is speaking directly to me this morning, as I feel myself locked heart to heart

with my great grandfather, trying to help him heal his 94-year old tragedy!

“Love, when it meets suffering," says Kornfield, "changes into a different quality of heart, which is compassion. It’s that quivering of the heart, when we feel in ourself or others, when we feel their struggles and their difficulties. It’s the resonance with them and the natural upwelling up of ‘How can I help?’”

Kornfield, who is a Buddhist monk and a PhD psychologist, constantly advocates for compassion and love and peace. The solutions to all the world's struggles "lie in the human heart," he says. He stresses that we must honor all of our feelings and struggles, even when "our hearts are broken open" by them.

Later on the podcast, he leads a meditation in which he suggests that I imagine a Divine spirit arriving to help me deal with my heartache and suffering or the suffering of others. One of those beings, he says, might be Mother Mary.

Of course! I recall now all of Perdita Finn's work with The Way of the Rose, and the Virgin's monthly addresses to worshipers in Woodstock. Maybe the key to unlocking healing for my ancestor is to pray to the Virgin Mary!

Ironically, Kornfield is speaking this morning with a really bad cold. He speaks so directly to me today, as I am feeling sick, as I am feeling so deeply my great grandfather's ancient pain and guilt, grief and suffering, that I am moved practically

to tears.