It has been such a long time since I have really written anything… I have been thinking about that lately, and feeling that it might be time to dive in to my heart that feels so broken, shattered from the loss of my father, and the shifts of life that have rippled from that loss. A friend sent me a book shortly after my father died… “How to Heal A Grieving Heart” by Doreen Virtue and James Van Praagh. It was given to her and signed by JamesVan Praagh, yet she felt called to put it into my hands. If you don’t know this book, each page has a separate thought, so you can just open the book to any page and find some bit of inspiration to help you through your grief. I think one of the first things I read from it was about how one great loss will trigger other unhealed losses. I had been experiencing that and reading that passage validated what I was going through. And so I have been wading through all the other losses that I thought I had put into place, accepted, understood, integrated, healed… only to discover of course that that was the furthest thing from the truth, my truth. Why when I wanted to focus on grieving the death of my father did I have to think about other things, relationships, parts of myself that brought up so much emotion. But there it all was. And I really had no choice but to somehow find my path through it all. My heart ached. I was depleted emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And ten months later, I can’t believe that my father has been gone (in the physical sense) for ten months, I am still very much immersed in the process and feelings of that grieving. Tears flow daily and I basque in the salt of my personal sea.
I think that our hearts are continually being broken – but broken open so that we may have the opportunity to really see who we are and who is really there for us in our lives. I have talked to many friends that have experienced the loss of a loved one, and everyone shares this – that the dynamics in their relationships change. Perhaps the person who died was the glue of the family… perhaps in the process of the death family members did not see things exactly the same way… or perhaps because we are all unique, we handle our grief as we handle our life in different ways. The point is, things change. Everything changes. And the change is continual. And so I take comfort in the fact that the sadness or pain or anger or disconnectedness I feel will change too. I think loss is the great wave that washes over us and like the ocean washing the shore, exposes every rock, every shell, every granule of sand, every piece of us. It forces us to be in the light, and yet there is the darkness too, when the water blankets us and allows us to stay in our depths, in whatever feelings we choose to be in at that time. I prefer the light. I relish the sunlight that shines on the beach, on me, warming my heart so that feelings of acceptance and love emanate from my soul, from my very core essence. But I also recognize the importance of the darkness and the time spent in that place. There is a quote about how it is darkness that gives us the opportunity to see the light. I think I see the light now – I think I see the path, to healing and love and acceptance and understanding of it all. And that is all we can really ask of ourselves – to find our way in a manner that allows us to be in the light of love and happiness, if even just for a moment each day.
