Renunciation
This past October, I lost my son for one hour. It was the longest hour of my life. Each passing second felt like a lifetime. My neighbor had taken my son and daughter on a walk in the woods near our houses. My son got upset and wandered off. When I arrived at her home to pick the kids up, she told me she couldn’t find him. We scoured the woods. After 15 minutes, we still couldn’t find him. My entire being was in shock – I called my husband to join the search party. “We can’t find Dylan.” I choked into the phone.
I ran along the river that flows near our homes not wanting to know what lay in the deep parts. My throat burned as I screamed his name. My thoughts raced to child abduction, drowning, coyotes...It didn’t seem real. I kept waiting to wake up.
When I met back up with my husband – both of us empty-handed, he told me it was time to call the police. Shaking and sobbing I called. They said they found a boy matching his description. He had been by the river and someone from the neighborhood brought him to a nearby house and called the police. He got a ride back to us in the police car. I held him and didn’t let go.
It was weeks before the shock went away. I didn’t expect that. My boy was in my arms – there was so much to be grateful for – and I was – but the scenarios kept haunting me. I would dwell on the proximity of loss and did not believe in my ability to take it. I wanted to detach from that deep love because the loss of it was too painful. I let my boy sleep in our bed and held him to me each night. Tears fell from my eyes as I realized the reality of everything I have to lose.
As time passed, I eased into the daily routine and forgot about fearing loss and love quite so much. In January, I listened to a podcast by Lama Marut in which he spoke of renunciation. He talked about renunciation as it relates to future lives – how true renunciation can happen when we are willing to change our behaviors so that future lives can be “better.” Now, I spend quite a bit of time on working on my stuff for my current life, but that was about the scope of my growth.
Around the time I listened to the podcast, Dylan and I went for a walk in the woods near where he was lost. As I watched him playing in the snow, I experienced an overwhelming sense of wellbeing. I realized that even though I carried around so much hurt and fear from losing him, the loss is not the end for me. I can love again, and I can love in a big way.
If I do my best to wrap my mind around a worldview that puts me in the driver’s seat of my karmic life, love can engulf me. I will experience loss, and it will hurt, but my capacity to love and feel joy will not end.
Sometimes my spiritual growth needs to stem from that pain – from that bottomless pit of fear over “what the fuck would I do if I lost my child?” That kind of fear is a driving force that makes renunciation of old behaviors and views look rather tasty. I don’t pretend enlightenment will come to me in this lifetime – but I think it can happen eventually. As I start to look at the colossal picture, I start to see the blessing of the work. I find motivation in being able to give that gift to my future self – the gift of suffering ceased.