Dawn's Notes
Bent in the Wind - October 2016
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
As I drove south toward the highway, I immediately became aware of how hard the wind was blowing. Signs of autumn were everywhere—leaves were falling, whirling and twirling to the ground, blowing from west to east, back east to west, and swirling around in the air as if in a frenzy.
As I pulled onto the highway, the wind was blowing hard out of the southwest. Grasses, trees, and bushes bent almost sidewise to the will of the wind. A dust devil swirled in the distance, and a pond on the north side of the road was alive with thousands of tiny rivulets created by the force of the wind.
Occasionally when I drove between cuts, where the earth was higher on both sides of the highway, there was a brief lull from the wind. When my car again emerged onto the flat, open highway, I felt the push of the wind, forcing me to grasp the steering wheel more firmly. Everything in the path of the wind bobbed up and down and bent toward the northeast.
The grasses showed off their brilliant colors of bright yellow, mauves, rich orange-browns, and white, reminding me of my mother’s words. “Look at the pretty grasses!” she used to say in the autumn. Taller grasses with heads of seeds shined bright-silver in the sunlight, rhythmically moving up and down as they bowed their heads in submission.
My mother also used to say, “Look at that tree! It’s leaning toward the north.” Sometimes trees succumb to the forces of unrelenting south winds which, with time and pressure, permanently leave trees in a slightly bent-over position.
Long ago Robert Louis Stevenson wrote:
“I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all—
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!”
As in the poem, I could not see the wind. But I could hear the wind’s call, its song. I could see the results of its strength and feel its force.
Sometimes we can see the effects of the harsh winds of life in the faces of people around us—looks of worry, sadness on wrinkle-furrowed brows. When I have “people watched,” I have wondered, “What has your life been like?” Just as I have not seen the wind, I have not seen their situations. But I can see the results of their harsh “winds.”
When hard times come, some people become bitter and permanently bend in the wind. Others may temporarily bend, but then spring back up, and move on with life. Death, health issues, and painful situations may make life difficult. If you have experienced the death of someone you love, you probably have acutely felt the impact of loss in your life.
An old Chinese proverb says, “Trees that don’t bend with the wind won’t last the storm.” So don’t forget to take care of yourself. Search for those little places of calm, shelters from the wind. When the winds are pushing hard, say a prayer and don’t let the winds permanently bend you in a direction you don’t want to go. Hang on! The autumn winds won’t blow forever. As you bend in life’s storms, don’t become bitter. Hang on. Bend, but don’t break.
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice
709 Liberty, Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator