One of the best people I know lost a parent this week, and I, uncharacteristically, am at a loss for words.
I have no Rolodex of life experience to access for this situation. The closest I have is the loss of a mother figure back in 2017. That is one problem with being an orphan.
I have been writing about it privately this week in an attempt to figure out what to say to them that might bring a smidgen of comfort and to process the feelings that their loss is bringing up in my own heart. It is simply another lesson I am learning about grief. Others’ losses can trigger or re-trigger your own. Often, it can cause your heart to turtle a bit.
I will probably speak obsessively about grief for the rest of my days. It has been and continues to be, the greatest and most challenging lesson of my life. I truly suck at it on ALL the levels and loathe everything it brings up in me.
I want to understand it though…
be better at it…
learn from it.
There is simply so much of it EVERYWHERE.
And not just human suffering or life. Grief rears its head in changing family dynamics, our destructive and divisive political landscape, job changes, kids launching from their families, evolving friendships, and on and on and on.
To deny grief. To deny it exists within us. That we feel it. That we see it. To deny its impact on us.
Well, it is to deny love, joy, great friendship, nature, beauty, and all of those things that make life breathtaking.
If there is anything, and I do mean anything, #DDS (Doretha) taught me, it is that grief can convert to joy. That love, in all of its glorious forms, does go on and on and on.
IF.
If we are brave enough to FEEL the grief and let it teach us, change us, and grow us,
I don’t know what grief, in what form, is at your doorstep, but I imagine it is in one form or another as you read this…
And I want to share that you are not alone, and I pray you are surrounded by love today in all its forms.
And that you know, the love goes on.
In light of that, here is a piece #FromTheArchives that I wrote the day I traveled solo to Doretha’s gravesite to say goodbye on January 21, 2018.
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1.21.2018
Note to Self.
Never forget.
The view of the fog so thick you could no longer see two cars ahead of you.
The crunch of the rocks under your tires as you wound down the tiny road.
The creak of the gate as you turned the handle.
The beat of your heart as you walked so slowly.
The feel of the rocky soil beneath your hands.
The words you said to her and the words you heard back.
The view of the woods just beyond the fence line.
The history you know as well as your own on every tombstone you pass by, saying hello.
The feel of the breeze on your face.
The moistness of the air.
The smell of the earth…
…and then…
The sound of the river flowing over rocks.
The sound of the wind in the trees.
The coldness of the water flowing through your fingers.
The heart rocks all around.
The coolness in them as you held them tight.
The memories of those long gone before you were even born.
The signs remind you of lives and hearts that intertwined three and four generations back.
All flowing through your blood and bone now.
Never forget the tears that fell.
The grief that you bore and released.
The ones you loved…that loved you so well.
The gratitude that washed over you as a sprinkle of rain fell, and then the sun peeked out over the clouds in the distance.
Grief can convert to joy.
The love goes on and on and on…
Author’s Note: There is a chapter in Facedown on my experience with therapy. The chapter bloated up so much that I broke it into two chapters, with the second focused on the lessons I had learned about grief and grieving over the course of therapy. The truth is it was the biggest lesson I had to learn, and my therapist encouraged me to include it because I had written so much about it over the years (hence the #lessonsingrief as I have to “name” simply everything, LOL). The truth is that you can be a literal subject matter expert (SME) in something and still have self-doubt. That is to say, I am NOT a SME on grief and grieving, but for all that I do know…and all of the work I have done in this area…I still have so very much to learn. It is in that posture that I humbly offer up both these old words and new words for public consumption. My most profound prayer is that they reach out and help the ones who need them just where they are at this moment.