Awakening & Surrender

“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender. Each morning we awaken to the 

light . . . each night we surrender to the dark . . . .At birth we were awakened and emerged to become 

visible in the world. At death we will surrender again to the dark to become invisible. Awakening 

and surrender: they frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, 

the beauty and the frailty.”

                    — John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

The Call 
           for Rosie & Terry

Wake up, wake up.

The sky is endless white.

Your eyes leap, blue and wild

as dazed fish burning in air,

then focus—the familiar sheen

of ceiling. Still here.

You glance at bedside table

for the pool of oatmeal, a corner

of bitten toast. What time

is it? Mid-morning, but could be

noon, night. Sleep is the stream 

you drift in now, mind amphibious,

body plotting to cast its

carapace away. A wave

of color breaks over you,

a smock, your nurse, her face,

garbled voice, hand pressing

a phone to your ear. You listen,

whisper, love you too.

The sky is endless white.

Wake up, wake up.

Note: Rose Lark Schulz, 1917-2011, my mother-in-law, 

left us this October. While the visible Rosie we knew and loved 

has moved on to whatever comes next, the invisible Rosie remains, 

like a drop in a pond, rippling outward, outward, outward. 

Shalom, Rosie.