Warning: self-pride.
This weekend and start of this week has clearly marked a new stage in my life. Early Friday morning my grandmother/bubbe passed, and the following days lasted a million years and required prep, contacting people, setting up the funeral, religious services, and most importantly supporting the family. On the side were my own duties as a Gnostic and Kemetic.
Now before I go on, let me say the understanding of my role in the family was generally something like "we love Ryan a ton but he's weird and distant and kind of on the outside." There's a lot of harsh personalities in the family, a lot of heartache and drama. So I never really took on a deeper role, and wasn't really expected to, hell I really shouldn't even have had to yet, but so it goes. The thing is, my own father and grandfather are past. Next in line would have been my maternal uncle, but as much as the (rest of the) family loves him, he's was never going to become the "man of the house." Meanwhile on my side, anyone who knows me knows I can be hard to deal with, speak my mind, even burn bridges. And I was ready for fights, but when I realized it was my time to take the mantle, none of that even mattered because it wasn't about me.
So I took charge, led, supported, I was the rock for the family and mourned privately to my wife, I let people bitch to me instead of causing drama, and set all my personal stuff aside. I asked people to come who I would even say I hate. I reconciled with my cousin once as close as a sister, instead of us believing the other hated them the rest of our lives, the best moment of my life since my wedding. Even when it came to the eulogy, instead of sharing simply my own memories I shared those we all shared, because my grandmother wasn't just mom to her kids or grandma to my cousin and I, but to dozens spanning the globe.
On a more spiritual side, I've considered myself a Lector in training for my patron. Writing a book or helping a beloved pet cross over is one thing, a person is a whole other story. I recited my favorite Pyramid Texts and was with her when she passed, placing a scarab over her heart. For my family I covered the mirrors and all similar symbolic acts, and where Shiva would be sat (Jewish family) set up an altar for her and my grandfather. Perhaps most character breaking to those who best know me, I volunteered to lead shiva services for a week, which I know they would have wanted. We just couldn't find a Rabbi to do it. At first I backed down, I never liked the way the mourning services barely dealt with the deceased, always focused on nothing more than praising and submitting to God no matter what. But like the rest of this, it wasn't just about me and there was nobody better to fill the role. Not just a funerary priest, but of multiple religions (/s)!
Throughout the weekend following there were just so many synchronicities and symbols different people picked up on, and after the funeral many people told me, to which I agree, we could all feel she and my grandfather were successfully at peace. I'm also the known hardass, and to be able to give my cousin forgiveness she needed, and ask for it myself, to welcome her home, was like nothing I've ever experienced. And it's not just all this, the house was ours for half a century, this week is something of its last huzzah. And it's exactly what my grandparents would have wanted.
It's not common today that 5 generations of family combine and welcome someone to adulthood anymore, but nothing meant more to me than so many coming up to me one by one, telling me I've truly grown and come into being, it is not something I have to doubt or fear anymore. And of it came literally nothing but good.
I am ready for my role, and I, for once, accept it with humility, awe, thankfulness. To be honest, I write this for myself. I wrote an obituary, speeches, services, so much this week I hadn't expected, it would be hypocritical not to pause on my own growth. If it seems like patting myself on the back, for the first time I truly feel that yeah, I am. I never thought my family would see me as more than a younger generation let alone man of their part of the family, I never thought my cousin and I would talk or see each other again let alone immediately forgive everything and just be together again. It's just been an amazing weekend, and I think I've finally helped my Jewish family understand that death is not this dark thing to be recognized as a sorrowful loss.
I share because I was the greatest of messes not 10 years ago. There is so much doubt, disenchantment, irrational fear, or anger when results are not given immediately. It took me more than 50% of my life on this earth (~18 years of study and practice) simply to reach the point where I can finally, fully know my place and accept my role, and I have put in what has been called inspiring but dangerously obsessive levels of effort into doing so. So don't give up. No matter how much of a mess it all seems, no matter how much self doubt or imposter syndrome, no matter how many times you find yourself at a dead end and have to start over, it's never the end of the road. But instant gratification, immeditae comfort, rushed initiation, materialism... all these things and more are antithetical to the path. It takes time, patience, and effort, but if it's meant for you, all that is worth it.
Dua my family, may it live eternally.