“Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda Youll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled: Youll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.” The things you remember as a child. I remember in grammar school being taught this song, which is considered Australia’s unofficial nation anthem, and having an apple-sized lump in my throat after learning how such a simple song captured an entire country’s sense of pride, perseverance and optimism. Legend has it that during a great strike in Australia, sheep shearers who would go from property to property in Australia’s great outback struck for a living wage, which quickly became violent. Land owners, furious at the thought of having to pay little more than slave wages, often employed police to keep the swagmen off their property, and shoot on sight anyone pilfering their herd. So they wandered the outback, often with their blanket roll--“Matilda”--as their only possession. Starving and with no prospects, the story goes that a swagman stole a sheep from a landowner’s property to boil and eat. He was caught by the land owner and the police, who hoped to make an example of him. But rather than give in and lose the last of his dignity, the swagman jumped to his death into a ravine. Legend contends that to this day, he still waltzes with his Matilda at the ravine to mock those who persecuted him. From a very young age, I was struck by how similar the legend is to those who are bereaved. After suffering the worst of indignities--the loss of a precious loved one, we seem to walk with no clear direction and no actual purpose through the dusty plains of our lives. It feels very often to most of us that even after the worst has befallen us, the indignities seem to continue piling on--friends disappear, family members become frustrated with our inability to “get over it,” and the world seems uninterested in the fact that we believe we are walking mostly alone through some of the worst times in our lives. Whether by design for sheer will, however, we learn that at no point were we ever walking alone. We have so many who have gone before us who are trying to nudge us back to the path of understanding. Whether we realize it or not, we have more help than we need, more hands on our heart, and more minds driven to helping us find peace. The souls have told me in thousands of sessions that nobody who walks on the earth walks alone, and that no matter how lonely we feel the journey is, they have been with us at every step. It only takes our ability to realize that the souls continue to care for us, and the resolve to allow them to help us to help ourselves find our footing so that we can continue the path on the earth that will most certainly lead back to them in a world of peace. In a way, those we love who have gone before us become our blanket roll--our “Matilda”--to see us through the tough times, the indignities and the fall from everything we thought was stable in our lives. Pride, perseverance and hope are so universal that legends like the swagman of the Australian outback continue to fascinate us. Maybe because these things are not only so needed in our lives, but because the world is potentially a dark and terrible place without them. The souls have never left us, but in a big way, it is really up to us to take the first leap of faith and start living after loss like we can actually do it. We were never alone, and we never will be. We may have to walk on--we may even have to fight on--in order to continue after loss, but one day the payoff will be spectacular. One fine day you will open your eyes, see the shining face of the one who you struggled so hard to find again, and hear the words it took a lifetime to hear, “It’s time to come waltzing with me.” If for no other reason, continue walking, continue persevering and continue fighting until that fine day.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 15:03:03 +0000
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