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Posts tagged ‘Healing’

Jul 16

Reflections, Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

The healing journey.

In July of 2023, I got sick. I wound up in the emergency room of the local hospital, and my kidneys were shutting down. They were at twenty percent function. I was disoriented, scared, and really not understanding how bad it was. At one point in the process leading up to my hospitalization, I became so confused that I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the bed. I couldn’t even think to turn the light on. That is sick, and that is scary. I found out after things settled that this is common for people facing this type of shutdown. Back to the narrative. A friend finally convinced me to call the doctor, who came and had me admitted, and by then it wasn’t good at all.

I was in the hospital for a week, and then a taxi took me home. I was disoriented coming out of the place because the hospital I was in was new, and I hadn’t seen it before. With low vision, this is a real issue.

I walked into my house, sat down my bag, walked to the sofa, and let out the tears. I sobbed, and then listened as my body and mind told me it was time to heal. It was time to do the work that led to healing all of it. All the trauma I’d stuffed. I had some therapy of my own to do, and it was time to find the therapist who would travel with me as I called the people to the encampment of the battleground. Funny how it works. It took another ten months to get to May of 2024, and to begin the intense work of cleaning out my mind and moving forward.

The healing process is an interesting thing. I’ve seen people who come to me and aren’t ready to do the work, and so they run away rather than to what can help. Others believe that grief and loss can be worked through in six easy sessions, and that there is a magic formula that the therapist can dispense. The fact is that this is a soul journey. It is a journey of the mind, the heart, and the spirit, if you will. It leads us to someplace else, and that someplace is the place of wonder and, ultimately, healing, such as it is.

On August 29, 2016, I sat at my dining table and looked at the lights that had been installed so that I would be able to see in my home. I wondered just how I, a woman with low vision, would be able to survive in a country where my limited Dutch would only get me so far. The only thing I knew at that time was that I couldn’t and shouldn’t make any major life decisions for a year. That is something my father had told me, and it was wise counsel.

And so, the journey of healing and discovery began that day, and in many ways it will never end. We may work through our grief and loss: we’re changed by it all.

The social system here set me up with someone to clean the house. At first, my then church came with meals until I realized I needed to cook for myself. If I needed to not work because I was compromised, I needed to do something for myself. I needed to let the process of grieving take place.

On Friday the thirteenth of January 2017, my mother died of a heart attack. We’d giggled, grown together, and experienced the death of my younger sister Joyce together. My mother was also an eight on the Enneagram. We understood this shared experience in life, and she taught me things despite not knowing about her beloved number. She just did life well in many ways. Because of where I was in the process of grieving Jon, I didn’t see and get fully the fact that my siblings telling me not to fly over for the memorial service was really bad advice. I’ve regretted that, and would do that one differently if I could.

By June of 2017, I felt ready to plan a trip to the US to see family and a friend. What I didn’t know then was that the trip would change the course of my life.

In late July of 2017, I flew to Salt Lake City to see some friends of Jon’s and attend a conference called Sunstone. At the conference I ran into people who were not Mormon, and it flipped a switch. I felt, and knew, that I had to check this other church out.

I then went to Oregon to visit another friend, and travelled on to California to see my family and visit the beach.

Staying at my brother’s place first and then moving on to my sister’s place was interesting. At the time I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d see both of them alive.

We made some good memories, and my sister and sister-in-law insisted I take my mother’s green quilt home. Now, they know of my love affair with blue. That green quilt would cause me to do a total room makeover. I painted the room blue, purchased a new bed that was blue and that the quilt would fit on, and realized that I had the piece of my mother that loved green. It has turned out to be one of the things I enjoy seeing, and it serves as a link to her and the love she had for me.

That trip also created a memory of my sis that I could never have done without her help. She got me on the flight with five boxes for less than the price of five extra boxes. I stood there at the airline counter, shut my mouth, and watched in amazement as she talked to the guy. I know when to shut my mouth. So, that quilt and other things came with me to be with me here in my new life.

The trip to the US changed my ability to sleep. In that first year, everything sleepwise changed. I didn’t sleep at normal hours, and family would question me as I called in the wee hours of my Netherlands morning. “Gail, what are you doing?” Well, when I can’t sleep, I call you.

Planning for the anniversary of his death had taught me that if I thought about it in advance, I could maybe, just maybe, control the tears and what would happen. It worked well for year one and failed for year two. What I really learned was that with the body, what we’re grieving will push its way to the surface and force itself on us in ugly ways. The life lesson: let go and don’t try to control what needs to happen. Healthy grief lets grief drive the process so it can heal. Even if grief must be put off because of life that must be done, it will surface, and when it does, embrace it!

What I’ve learned about the first two years of loss are that the tears change in quality and quantity. Looking back eight years, I can see all of the journey better now. How different it was and now is. In letting it all go, I freed myself to trust the grief process in ways that opened my heart and mind to healing, and because of that, I was carried to where I am now. July of 2023 had to happen so that I could write this in July of 2026. I see that now, and that is one of the huge things this journey has gifted me with. Wow, what an amazing place I’ve gotten to!

Jul 9

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Reflections, Part 1

Note: This post contains details related to suicide.

This last Tuesday, I made a call to a friend and asked if he could drive up north and help me empty out the shed—the shed where Jon ended it. I wasn’t expecting him to come up as fast as he did. He said he could come Thursday morning. I was stunned.

I contacted him at eight, and he told me that he had been talking to a friend and mentioned what he was going to do for me. The friend asked if he could help! So, two nice guys came to call on me to clean out, or clean up, a space that has been nothing but dread for me. Not a bad gesture at all.

Then they offered to buy me lunch! This is radical hospitality on their part.

The last ten years have been spent avoiding the place where Jon ended it: the shed. The shed has been a place I unlock, enter quickly, and then lock up again. There is still a place where they couldn’t get the blood out of the concrete despite the deep cleaning they did. They removed what they had to and left the rest.

Several years ago this same friend came, and we sent things off to the trash. I wasn’t ready to do the final clean-out. That took me doing the work of discharging some loyal soldiers.

Mind-cleaning takes time, and it has taken me ten years to be able to deal with the fallout. Now, I was able to make the call to have the rest of it hauled off to a garbage grave.

These two guys told me to go back to the house, and they’d take care of it. When they needed me to get in the car and drive to the disposal site for the first round, they came and got me. It all takes me back to that August Sunday.

Jon came in and woke me up and told me he needed to talk to me. It had been a difficult weekend filled with our last night out on Friday, and a very lazy Saturday. My gut told me to pull back and to let him be. He was on the computer the entire day. I can’t recall what I did most of the day; I do recall that I was quiet.

We went to bed at a decent hour, and I was tired, so it felt good. Then he woke me up that morning to talk. What I didn’t know then was that this would be the pivotal conversation that would alter my life as I understood it.

We sat on the bed because he had this thing about talking to me and looking into the mirror. I didn’t understand it but I honored it.

Jon was enrolled in a DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) process. It is commonly used for those who are dealing with bipolar disorders and borderline personality disorder. DBT teaches some great life skill techniques, as well as advocating that the person receiving treatment take full responsibility for their life and actions within that life (see An Impossible Life for details on DBT and an amazing story of one woman’s journey). We sat on the bed and he asked me how long he thought it would take for him to complete the treatment. I hesitated just a second, and he then said, “You don’t know, and my doctors don’t know.” He’d been in treatment for two years at that point, and the psychologist was working with him, and being conservative. He got up and left the room.

What I discovered was that in that one second delay he’d made up his mind.

I got up and ate breakfast. It would be the only meal I ate that day. At 1:00 pm he came to where I was and said that he needed to talk to me. The conversation lasted less than five minutes, with him having his back to me. In that short time, he tore open my soul, announced that “this isn’t going to work,” and left the room. I followed him. I was angry and stunned as I watched him empty his pockets, and then announce that he was going on a walk.

At that moment I thought: That does it. I’m done. I’m getting a divorce. That was one step too far. I’d been a caregiver and was at that point in time suffering from compassion fatigue. I let him go, and I went and began to binge-watch old Law and Order episodes. As I watched, I was able to calm myself, bring myself to a logical place, and finally realize that it had been two hours, and he had not come back. I realized he could be very suicidal.

I called a friend to confirm the process for getting the police involved; he confirmed what I knew, and then called the 112 number to get the local neighborhood police to go looking so I could get him committed.

I now realized I felt hungry. It was going on 4:00 pm, and so I walked downstairs to head into the kitchen. I never made it into that space. On the table was a note. I can’t tell you how it all happened. I know I called my friend back, told him, grabbed the key to the shed, and I couldn’t open it. I went back inside, and not more than a minute or two later the police came to my door. I led them to the shed; they broke in, and they saw the body. They told me to go back to the house. I never saw the body in the shed.

Dutch police don’t put the yellow crime scene tape up. They did what they needed to do to remove the body from the shed and came into the house to talk to me. The mortician came and took him away. They put hard paper up to cover the broken glass, and that next morning it was all cleaned up.

Meanwhile, I’m in shock, having to call family on both sides, and my friend arrives to be with me. By now it is time to start calling the US. This will take several hours. It is now dark. I end the Skype calls, walk back downstairs, and get told: “You aren’t staying here alone tonight. I’m taking you to our house.” I complied. It was the first kind gesture in my experience that I’ll place in the “please do” thoughts. The last week, he came with another kind person to clean out the rest of the shed. It is done, and my reflection can continue in a new way.

The last ten years have been difficult, an education in new life lessons, and at times both horrifying and joyous. For the most part, I’m thankful for what I’ve learned. What have I learned?

Wow, everything on this blog!

I’ve learned that grief is not about stages. Grief has seasons, and we’ll loop through them many times. It isn’t about getting there, because there is no destination to arrive at. It isn’t that the tears stop: they change, and I’m sure I’m in for some as the fateful date approaches. Ten years. I hope it can be said that I’ve become a better person for living through it.

I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that grief is a teacher, and it shows us ourselves in new ways if we become open to letting it. We get a nice peek into ourselves at our worst, and our best. We get called out on the difficult stuff, and at the same time discover strengths that we never would have found if we had not gone down this path.

I’ve done horrible stormy nights and bright, sunny days, and both have taught me to stand up and be me.

I’ve grown in all ways: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and maybe even physically.

Here I sit on this cool day, celebrating a post I knew would be written before the day it happened.

Would I do it over again? Would I marry Jon and end up a widow? I can’t say what I’d do, because once you go down a path, it changes who you become. I like where I am now. This becomes about learning from a mistake and learning to find the good in it all. And for me it has been a challenge. I can be hard on myself. OK, I’ve learned that I can really be overly critical of myself at times while telling others to cut themselves some slack. I’m working on it.

I think back to the days when I was so raw, and what that felt like, and how forward movement has happened. I think back to when I wrote “Navigation,” and how it blew my mind. I think right now I’ve cycled though some fancy boats, and maybe I’m in a small boat on a new stretch of river that I don’t fully understand now.

We get to new places and must face new lessons in new ways. My new lessons are about being able to learn the value of new relationships. For the first time in ten years, I’m thinking I might want to open up to such a thing. Considering the hurt I’d gone through ten years ago, this is remarkable.

We can’t put life on hold as we grieve. I think that is a good thing. What does happen is that we fall apart. We can’t concentrate or think straight, and sometimes we can’t even do simple tasks. Our dysfunction shows up in the fact that something is terribly wrong in our lives. If we were totally functional, that would be off, and we’re not OK, are we?

So, shed the tears. If you can’t do the trash, maybe a friend can do that for you. The laundry might get scary for a few loads, and the kitchen might need help. Your friends and family need to check to do the things you can’t.

No time limits: it just is, and it will move forward when you’ve done what you need to do to move forward on your own path.

All the above being mentioned, you are not alone, and if you need to find a serious support group or a great therapist, we’re here. Grief is serious, and there are times when you need to bring someone into your space to care for you.

I know asking for help can be difficult, and that it can feel as if a burden is being placed on someone. Real friends can and will step up to the plate on your behalf. There are also times when old friends don’t get it, and new and unexpected people come into your life to show that they care and understand what you need during this time in your life.

I’ve witnessed this in my own life, and it has been a true gift. Thank you for the giving, as it’s made the hard times seem worthwhile.

Feb 12

Goodbye, Again

I don’t say goodbye well. It isn’t that I can’t; it’s that I will always remember. I’ll remember the place and the clothes I was wearing. I’ll remember the time of day. Now, it seems that 2026 is a year to let go of the old and welcome the new. It is a bittersweet time of my life.

And so it is with grief. We move forward into new discoveries. What I once struggled to part with is now back in a decade of dust just like the dust that a car makes on an unpaved road.

Last night I said a difficult goodbye to a leadership position that I’ve held for eight years. I’m saying goodbye because I’m moving forward. I’m headed into an unknown, and hopefully good, place where I’ll serve others in new ways. Goodbye was hard, and after I said the words and left the meeting, I sat on my wonderful bed, and I let the tears come. It seems as if clearing the battlement, and realizing that I don’t need to engage the iceberg as I once did, enabled the tears I once might have not shed to come freely.  

It seems to me that, like the seasons, I’ve moved in time and understanding. I now have the option of questioning what I’m ready for as I move along my new path of life.

As I think back on the winter of grief, tears form, and I recall the pain of wondering if the tears and the heartache would ever end. I listened to the voices of others who said that, yes, the tears would change, and the quality of the tears would be different. Then I became one of those voices. The day came when I noticed that the tears had faded into the past. “Goodbye, I love you” could be said in a different way. That was the season of autumn, with its rich colors and flavors. It was a time of acceptance and quiet movement. Autumn speaks to my heart in many ways, and this season of grief has spoken well, and I suppose that I’ll visit this season in new ways and different times of my life.

I’m entering into a new spring! I’ve been here before. This time around it isn’t the budding of new hope: it’s the beauty and surprise of the unknown that will welcome in a place of exploration and gently move me into a summer of exploration and new life. I’ll gladly engage with this new journey! Summers are all about the work of the journey. Once again, I’ve crossed Styx. I stand on this expectant shore ready to welcome the spring and summer that will unfold for me.

I realize that the seasons of grief are not organized with one following the other. These seasons take us to where we need them to carry us, and the work that we do on our grief journey determines the season we arrive in. There are multiple seasons! 

I light my scented candle that brings the scent of water into the room. I realize I’m being called to a place along the shoreline where the river pilot waits for me. He ushers me on board the sleekest of sleek boats. Run the water with this! Whoa! I know my friend the pilot and I will navigate new waters with a new confidence. I’m sure I’ll put to shore in different seasons and head inland to explore. The pilot asks me if I remember that first running of the water. I do, and I was so scared. That old boat is somewhere off in a past that has faded into so many new discoveries. I believe the best one is that ten years ago I didn’t know I could do what I’ve done.

As I cast off into the water, I’m finding out how to welcome the new. A few years ago, I said a goodbye at Bracelet Bay in Wales. I spread ashes and cried, and a friend said a prayer. Jon’s ashes spoke to me of the place where I needed to spread them. The fine dust of life went into the water that September day. Wales has been a part of this grief process, and soon I’ll be within view of it in March as I take on a new task in my life.

I haven’t been too anxious to move things along at a rapid pace. I’ve needed to learn what the river holds, and I’ve needed to allow the gentle process of healing to glide me along the path that it holds for me.

Grief is about tears, mourning our losses, and accepting new futures. Grief is about learning to say goodbye in a thankful manner for what the journey has taught us. Grief is leaning to welcome what is new graciously.

Apr 14

Editor’s Pick: The Rose Room

Originally posted on August 23, 2019, this piece is good reminder of how carving out one’s own little special space can help us find peace during times of struggle.

-Claudia

As some of my readers know, I’ve just painted and will be painting the rest of the space soon. There was one room that has gone untouched. It is a beautiful rose color, and in it there are many treasures. It is the Room of All Things Gail.

On the walls there are works of art, and each piece has a loving history.

There is a painting that my aunt Ruth did way back when that I treasure. I love it because she let me have it, knowing how much it meant to me. There is the counted cross-stitch that my friend Leann labored to create for me. It is beautiful, and I cherish it because she performed a labor of love when she stitched it.

Along with that, my older sister Beth has a place of honor with the picture that has been with me since childhood. It is a Gail version of The Princess and the Pea. She put me in a blue dress on top of many mattresses. Each mattress is a different color and design. I love this so much and someday it will go to one of her daughters.

Hanging in the Room, and moved from the bedroom, is another counted cross-stitch. My sister-in-law Peg made this for our wedding. It, too, was done with love. Shared love is the only requirement to be placed in this Room.

I also have two stained-glass pieces of art that my mother-in-law Mary made. I am so thankful to have them.

Hanging in another place of honor is the wedding bouquet that my three sisters-in-law Peg, Bev, and Rebecca created for me.

There are two parasols that Jon hung up. I’ve mentioned in “Sneakiness is Happiness” that he backlit them for me. That is a day I will remember forever. Oh, the love that filled the space that day!

The Room holds objects that span the years of my life and are sacred to me. It holds something from a friend who I came to know in the last five years of my life. That friendship has given me many gifts of thought and hope. Thank you, Betty. The Room is my place of healing and restoration. I can sit quietly, get ready for my day, and read in that room.

In some ways the Room has existed for a few years, but in other ways the Room is new. The Room in its present form emerged into its new role in my life over the late summer and early fall. It started with knowing that I wanted to place a new piece of furniture in the Room, and as I envisioned where it would go and how it would feel in the Room, The Room grew in purpose and my understanding of the space began to change. What I had used as an office during Jon’s life would be no more. My office was to move to the other side of the house where the sunlight can stream into it and I can see out into a larger world.

This Room called Gail is a place of healing and hope. This is where my heart is found, where the healing is strongest, and where, when I enter, I find the most peace.

For those of you who read “Raw” or listened to the podcast (Parts 1, 2, and 3) that I posted late in 2017, my healing journey has been both traumatic, challenging, amazing, and in some ways even peaceful. I suppose that it has been a combination of watchfulness, the love and caring of others, and the understanding that this type of pain and hurt only dissipate when faced head-on. It is my tiny sanctuary, however, that allows me to find what I most need in my heart.

It is the realization that I can say a loving goodbye to someone I have loved deeply. He is not in pain now. It is also an acceptance that I can hold on to his memory in new ways.

The creation of this space has done its secret healing and holds a place in my soul that I didn’t understand until I let go to find it.

I don’t think that there is any single or correct way to heal from something like this. I think that the best healing comes from following your heart and soul and listening to your gut. Healing involves talking and finding a supportive listener. For the listener, you need to choose wisely. Find someone who you feel a bond with, someone who respects you, and who you respect. If there is not such a person in your life, then find a good therapist who understands both grief and the loss involved with a completed suicide.

Healing is about recognizing that you will have really good days, really bad days, happy days, and days of hopelessness. Healing is about allowing the depression that will come because of the death that has entered into your life. Sit with the depression for a time, and if it doesn’t fade, seek professional help. Healing is about understanding that the pain will diminish and calm. Healing is about loving yourself. It is about seeing yourself in the mirror as “enough”: no more and no less than “enough.”

Healing takes strength and courage. It is your own unique journey.

As I spend time in this healing space, I’m discovering its complete power. It is the power of the lit candle in the darkness. It is the homing beacon that steadies me. It is that place that tells me that I’m loved, both by myself and by many others who I both know personally and who I only know because of the Internet.

To walk through the process of healing is also to be able to look out the window on a grey day and see the sun that the clouds hide. It is a knowing that you and only you can fully understand. It comes from traveling through it and stumbling along the way. It happens when you stand up once more and say “AGAIN!” You are never beyond, but you have moved on.

Forward movement takes on many forms. Sometimes it is a return to the old haunts, and other times it is the unexpected and unfamiliar that call to the soul. In many ways, the Room of All Things Gail was totally unexpected to me. It was a feeling that I had to create a place of sanctuary.

As I write this, I am in my new, blue office space surrounded by books, my sand tray collection, and hope. This space is one I’ve claimed as mine. As I look out of the window, I see the stormy skies closing in; I see the other homes in the area. Most of all, I see LIFE. It is good. It is peaceful and this is my space now. This is the room where he wrote the notes. This is the room where he spent so many hours. And yet, this is not “that room” any longer. The painter came one November day and covered the rich green walls with my beautiful blue color. The painter took nothing away but what had to go. It doesn’t hurt like it did a year ago. This is a place I come to work and to enable the healing of others. This room also holds some treasures.

While blue is the color of my soul, it has not been the color of my deepest healing. That has been rose. That Room is just a few steps away from where I now sit working on this, and I shall go there to feel the warmth of the sanctuary: the Room of All Things Gail.

As I sit here, I realize that I could not have created this lovely space without the Room of All Things Gail. It was the power of healing that let me say goodbye to what had been, and greet anew what was to be. It was the power in that Room of Rose that set me on a journey to claim the space I’m now working on. It was the realization while sitting in that space that I could, and should, listen to my heart and follow my desires to create what I wanted for myself. Thank you, Rose Room. I think I’ll go there now to pause, give thanks, and continue the journey.

Oct 21

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Healing and Icebergs

I stand in an empty place. The battlement and castle that once stood as a fortress have been carried off to a place of full discharge. There are no loyal soldiers here anymore. They’ve been honorably discharged, and they served well.

It is a peaceful feeling to have said goodbye to all of them; they were tired and in need of the rest of the valiant warriors they were.

At the beginning of the discharge process, I was sent something by my therapist, and it made me cry. It felt safe, and as if the process I was about to undergo was one of healing. It describes the therapy process well, and it fits my way of thinking. I’ve fallen into a mad crush with the iceberg, and I have my own whimsical vision of what she looks like. I want you to know about this gem of a description of therapy, and so, I’ll share it here.

THE ICEBERG

A tale of therapy

Author unknown

Once upon a time, in a place at the end of the earth, there lived an iceberg. The iceberg was quite a small one, part of a much larger one from which she had broken away and floated free in the cold water.

Sometimes she found herself brushing up against other icebergs, but she learned to steer clear after a particularly painful bump during a patch of stormy weather. On the whole, she managed to stay out of trouble, watching the weather carefully and adjusting her course to suit the conditions. She was weary and lonely and wanted to find a place where she could be with other icebergs who wouldn’t hurt her and where she could relax a bit.

Now we all know about icebergs and how that part that shows above the water is only a very small part of the whole. This particular iceberg was bright on the surface, and when the sun shone on her, she sparkled and twinkled and danced about on the water, bobbing up and down as if she didn’t have a care in the world.  This was the part that showed above the water, but below there was a great weight of ice into which lots of debris had become frozen. All the flotsam and jetsam of her own and other people’s lives had become entangled and was firmly lodged into this heavy submerged part; it was slowly dragging the tiny tip of the iceberg right under the water. Steering herself had become more and more difficult and dangerous.

Then one day the iceberg found a small sheltered bay on the edge of the land and she floated into it without even realizing where she was going. She just felt she was safe at last and able to stop worrying about bumping into other icebergs for a while. She rested herself and basked in the warmth of the sun that shone on her. When night came, she thought that she would find that she had floated out again into the dangerous waters, and every new day, when the sun came out again, she marvelled at it and wondered if it could possibly last. And it did.

After some time, she really began to trust the constancy of the sun and found that she didn’t need to worry about it anymore. Sometimes a cloud passed in front of the sun, but it soon passed and afterwards the sun seemed all the warmer by comparison.

The longer she stayed in the sheltered bay, the warmer the water became, and then a strange thing began to happen. The edge of the ice beneath the water began to melt, freeing some of the debris trapped in it. Every day the sun shone, and the ice melted a little more. The iceberg watched in amazement as bits floated to the surface; she realized that these were bits of herself that had been submerged for a long time, causing her to feel so heavy, dragging her down. She began to understand why things had been so difficult for her, and she was glad to watch the rubbish drifting away into the wider waters.

The sun’s warmth had also changed the bit of iceberg that showed above the water. The great deep, jagged clefts etched down her sides had been smoothed away by the great rivers of water that streamed down her as she watched the debris floating to the surface. The tip of the iceberg, instead of becoming smaller, had actually become larger as more of herself showed above the water, freed of entanglements.

This affected the iceberg in different ways. At first she found it hard to recognize herself and she wondered if the other icebergs would know her, or if they would notice a change in her. She wondered if her new size would cause her problems when she went back into the wider waters, and if she would be able to steer clear of the other icebergs in quite the same way. But then she realised that, now that she was bigger, she would not need to be so fearful of being bumped or hurt. And, being free of the debris, she would be able to steer more easily and have more choice about the directions in which she moved. She was less likely to be dragged down or tipped over, even if she did occasionally bump into other icebergs. She began to feel more whole, as though the part below the water was less separate from her.

Although there were still some bits of rubbish frozen into her submerged parts, at least she knew they were there and how they might affect her, and that, in time, they, too, might work free and float away. Now, it may seem that all this happened a little too easily, but it was not so. Whilst the iceberg basked in the sun after first finding the sheltered bay, there was a lot of turbulence beneath the surface, and the iceberg was very anxious, not knowing exactly what was going on down below. At times she was frightened of the degree of agitation in the waters and wondered if she would be able to maintain her balance. But all the time the sun kept shining, and that reassured and comforted her and made her feel that, whatever was going on beneath the waters, all was still well above.

When the iceberg had melted enough to free the debris, the disturbed particles began to hurt as they broke free, and the pain was worse as the icy numbness dissolved away. The iceberg was dismayed when she recognized some of the debris that had floated to the surface: bits she didn’t want to see; bits she had forgotten she had picked up on dark and stormy nights; bits she was frightened about and with which she wished she had never come into contact. But she had to admit, they were all parts of her, whether she liked them or not. And the sun still shone.

The sun shone on the good bits and the sun shone on the bad bits; somehow that made the iceberg feel as though things couldn’t be so bad after all. Some of the bad bits didn’t belong to her at all, but were parts of the larger iceberg from which she had broken away. As the debris floated in the water around the iceberg and the sun shone on them, she was able to look at them more closely and see how they had been harming her. She allowed herself to feel angry about the bits that had been attached to her by others and that she had thought were hers. She had always realised something was there, weighing her down, but she had not known what to do about it. Some of the rubbish might even be quite useful, like lots of flotsam washed up on the shore, useful at another time, in another place. It had made her the shape she was and now her shape had changed to something that was much more her own.

The iceberg looked out towards the wider waters and wondered if it was time to risk herself out there. She knew the sun that warmed her would still be shining down on her, and that it did not only shine on the sheltered bay. She still needed the sun and the wind and the rain in order to be fully aware of living, experiencing, and growing.

She felt the breeze stirring around her, tugging gently at her, and she let herself go, with new hope and courage, out into the wider waters.

Jul 29

The Relationship File (Revisit)

Originally posted on June 22, 2022.

In the last decade, I’ve lost my husband, mother, brother, and sister. I’ve jokingly told my younger brother that he’s under orders not to die on me. I’ve also said goodbye to an old faith home and welcomed a new place of faith into my life. All of this comes with grief, loss, mourning what was, and needing to reexamine relationships.

Of those who have exited life, only one was old enough to do so; the other three were all far too young to go. The reality is that they are all gone. The relationships now stand for review in the memory file, and what is done is done. The past faith home also stands in a memory file. Everything is up for discussion and it’s all fair game; nothing is sacred, not even my mother, whom I love deeply.

In looking at all of this, I must turn back the clock to the year 2006, when my husband’s questioning of his faith began. At the time, I wasn’t questioning, but I did want to hear about what he was thinking, feeling, learning, and what was making him angry about it all. The process altered the way we communicated, and it led me to my own path of discovery. It was a good thing, and ultimately, I took from it that relationships can change and that the change can be for the better. We didn’t need to go to antagonism. The concept that we could be different and have a healthy relationship was new to him. We could talk and nothing was off limits. That was where we were when he made his exit. Because examination of things was possible while he was alive, it made it possible to return to the relationship after his death and turn over some of the things that I needed to look at.

Relationships don’t end at death. We carry them forward; they are woven into the tapestry of our ongoing existence. As much as we may wish to erase someone or something from our lives, we can’t. We learn through turning over the rocks to look at it all.

This is also true of my relationship with my mother. I was fortunate that for approximately eighteen years, my mother and I spent every Monday in conversation. We’d giggle, laugh, cry, learn from each other, and talk about things that were deep and serious. Obviously, we spent hours before that time in conversation. When she made her exit, the “I love yous” had been said, and the one question I never asked—the one that I’d like to go back and ask now—I think I know the answer to. Her death came less than six months after Jon’s traumatic death, and I did not go to the memorial. My not attending was a bad choice, and I learned from it. Being there is needful in so many ways.

As I examine my relationship with my mother, I can make peace with what negatives there were. I think the fact that we had that conversation base to draw on has really helped. Pushback was allowed.

Then I look at my sibling relationships. My two older siblings and I didn’t always understand each other. I’m sad about this, and I also know that it wasn’t of my making. I tried. Could I have done more?

In looking at the hard question of putting things right in life, and after they’ve made their exits, I’m challenged by the meaning of our relationship. What is “right?” I love them both. I know that they, each in their own way, loved me. As I take relationships apart, I arrive at the same nasty conclusion that I did in life: They never understood disability the way they needed to understand disability. They were never able to completely understand me. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can be at peace with my end of the relationship and that is the best I can do. This brings up another question for me, and it is one I’ve been musing on for some time.

Why is it that in death, loss, and grief, many people choose to move forward without the work of examining the loss they’ve had in life? The urge to replace someone or something can be strong, and it can also damage us. The more I sit with this question, the more I wonder if it has to do with the fact that our society has radically changed relationships, trauma, and life in general. I’ll explain using WWI and WWII.

Both of my grandfathers were veterans of WWI. They came home on ships. They came home together with war buddies, and in large numbers. On the ships they had time to process the violence and the trauma, and they supported one another. WWII came around, and their sons enlisted and went off to two different fronts: Europe and Japan. They also witnessed violence and trauma, and they came home on ships. They also came home to a hero’s welcome. Their fathers had processed the war and now could mentor their sons. War breeds atrocities, and WWII left the world with several that can never be undone. Old times weren’t any simpler, but they were slower. What’s changed? My grandfather knew the wisdom of allowing his son to prune the rosebushes and tend the garden. He worked through some of the trauma that way.

Leaving the site of battle is a matter of days or hours now. People now come home by boarding a flight that will carry them home. Veterans now come home to a fast-changing society, fast tech, and a culture that is in constant motion. They return traumatized and, in many situations, misunderstood by loved ones and society in general. It alters relationships. This is not to say that my parents’ and grandparents’ generation didn’t suffer from PTSD and other war-related issues. I’m pointing out that their return was slower and allowed for a different type of processing time.

I’m suggesting that maybe we’ve become immune to the damage we’re causing to each other by not slowing things down. In the past seventy-plus years, we’ve moved forward in both healthy and unhealthy ways. This applies to how we treat our relationships.

Are we willing to slow down and take the time to process our lives a wee bit more gently? Parting is hard. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, the past does catch us, and sooner or later what we failed to look at in the near or distant past resurfaces to bite us when we’re not looking!

I reflect back to a night around the dinner table when my father lost it over food. I realize now it was a war memory that he should have sought therapy for, but in those days doing therapy wasn’t common. At the time, it had been about thirty years post war—pruning the roses had not resolved it all. I wonder what would have happened had he looked, talked, and resolved? I wonder how our family would have been changed had he looked. I know how I’m being changed by working slowly and deeply on the past, whether it is peaceful or difficult. I’m moving forward in a healthier manner than had I rushed into my future life. I’m walking into something new, and I hope I’m doing it with grace.

May 27

What’s out There?

I had a minor stroke in October of 2014, and altered my lifestyle to take it slower in the mornings. I’ve gotten to like the morning. I’ve enjoyed the lazy two-hour waking up and relaxing before I do anything. I sit in bed and listen to podcasts or read. I meditate. I wander downstairs, eat, and begin the day in earnest. It’s really been nice.

I’m giving it up.

I’m giving up the lazy part of the morning due to the fact that I’ve been confronting myself about why, after so many years, I’m still doing the lazy. It’s time to call out myself on being lazy and loving it. It isn’t a helpful thing for me to do. It has served its purpose. It was needful for the first two years post stroke. It became a habit after that.

After Jon’s death, I felt at liberty to heal the mind. Reading a note that your husband killed himself, and being told where to find the body, and trying to open the door that is locked from the inside is traumatizing. I needed to heal. I healed, slept odd hours, ate at strange times, and took two years off to begin the process of getting back to a new normal. I was fortunate in that I could do a two-year break from working.   

There is not one normal thing about doing the work of grief and becoming the new person that lies beyond the death or serious loss of someone in your life. Many years of reflection is what it took for me to feel like I’d come out of the fog and daze that grief causes. Getting up off the bench I was sitting on yet again is what it’s all about.

There have been mornings when I’ve wondered about how to fill the days, and days when I’ve wondered how I do anything. The changing times seem to allow for the seasons of loss to come and leave their mark. I think back to my grandmother and my mother and my aunts, and now I understand that lonely of not having a life partner next to you in bed. With eight years gone by, I think I get it.

Now I understand why getting back to a more active way of living is so hard. This other life, the one where I can do lazy mornings, is habit forming. I have had no desire to place myself in a position where I’m accountable for the exit.

Yesterday I changed the way I identify my personal appointments on my calendar. It was an eye-opening experience. I took out the nickname my husband used, and I replaced it with Gail. It felt like it was time to do that little act.

I have been fortunate to have several family examples of how to get through the grief process. I’ve been able to observe my grandmother, two aunts, and my mother. Some of the family pattern has been useful, and other parts have been strewn with problems. I hope that I’m doing it in a healthy way.

I’ve had my own set of challenges with being disabled. I’ve had to build up new confidence and come to terms with my own past demons.

Now, it is my turn. Eight years going on nine, and I’m asking the question, “What’s out there?” I’m finding good things to explore.  

May 20

Going In and Coming Out (Revisit)

Originally posted on February 28, 2023.

It is a fact that grief is unique to each of us. We go into the process thinking that there are rules, and we emerge knowing there are no rules. Nothing is certain because nothing in life is certain. As much as we may deny it, at the beginning we’re grieving because something happened that was unexpected.

After Jon left this life, I didn’t do anything major for two years. My rule was simply to not make a life-changing decision during the first year of a life crisis, and I extended that to a second year. 

When the severe crying was over, my days were mostly calm, and I was moving into year three when the real changes began. I’d taken over the larger room and turned it into my space for when I would return to work. This meant sorting through things that had to go. They were his, and I didn’t need his stuff in what had to become a new space. This process has taken several years. 

I decided to let things happen in a natural manner. My desire to trash things has gotten the better of me at times, and this time I’ve exercised a great deal of caution.

The big change has been sitting with the space, thinking about what I really want for it, and allowing the thoughts to come as my head let them come. It is also about making decisions that are realistic. Like a person becoming sober and clearing their head, grief—and the journey out of grief—will take us to places where our heads clear up. Think of it as grief sobriety. This doesn’t happen rapidly; it takes distance and hard work. Sometimes clearing the head takes years because we don’t have the ability to ask the correct questions in the beginning. 

Doing a reclaim of the self is about time. Who was I before this relationship? How did this relationship make me a better person? What did the relationship do to me that wasn’t good for me? How is my relationship with myself affected by this event occurring in my life? Each of these questions are questions that we answer as we look long and hard into a mirror. Ultimately, we answer the questions, and this allows us to move forward. 

One of the tiny things that I realized was that I’m living with chipped cups and plates. It began to bother me each time I took a cup or plate out of the cabinet. Last night, the feeling hit a fever pitch when I saw something that I liked, and for a price I loved. The thought entered my mind that I didn’t need to live with what was not pleasing me. I could replace my daily table setting with something that would make me smile. Ordering that blue set was liberating. Ordering the set triggered an insight into what I was doing in the home to make it mine. Now, with my eyes open, I was seeing clearly. I need to let myself enjoy the space I have here. I’m widowed, loving my space, and I can do what I want, when I want to do it. That is the plus side of moving forward.  

The Gift of Grief

There comes a time in the process when we ask ourselves: What do I want my life to look like moving forward? This is the gift of grief, growth, and exploration. 

Creating our future comes our way when we’re able to make peace with the past and move ahead with an understanding that we’ve done the deep work of our past life. We are usually older, wiser, and with the living we’ve done comes a freedom to think it through at a slower pace. 

The healthy side of grief allows us to slow down and to plan an unrushed future. I think of this place as being in a condition of contentment.  

Coming out of grief could mean we’ve been deeply affected by any number of life situations: death, divorce, realizing that we are LGBTQIA+, coping with a disability, experiencing traumatic events, growing up and moving out on our own, or something else. Recognizing that we’ve been in a foggy place, and now the skies are clearing up, is what coming out of grief is all about. Most people quietly leave where they were for where they are. We don’t even think that we’re glad it’s over because it’s a velvet transition. 

While entering the grief space is, for the most part, traumatic, walking into the future is soothing. 

If had been told at four years after the loss that I had to sit down and plan the future, I would have planned a messed-up life. At four years, I was ready to work and to learn again. I was ready to think about what I wanted beyond that point in time. For instance: I wasn’t ready to consider new tableware. I wasn’t ready to make the emotional parting: I needed time to say goodbye. 

Gail’s Learning Since 2016: a Few Tips

Allow the tears to flow and the anger to do what it needs to do within yourself and avoid others who tell you that you’re on a schedule. 

Don’t force something that will happen naturally. Forcing emotions that aren’t ready to surface can be distressing. 

Making life decisions before the end of the first year of whatever it is you are coming out from might not be such a healthy place to go. Take the time to let your head clear. 

With some types of life situations, there are things that have to be done legally, and they are on their own schedule. You might not begin to grieve until the resolution of an estate or other major happenings. You may need to sell the home, move to a new place, or do other things in a rapid manner that will affect your grief process. Cut yourself some slack. Do the essentials and work to calm things so that you can connect with your grief. 

Isolation within a relationship is not healthy. Being so content that you spend time only with a partner can lead to social struggles when the relationship ends. Stay engaged with others! Healthy relationships thrive on variety and a sprinkling of others that we can engage with. 

Your address book will rearrange itself. I can tell you from personal experience that some family couldn’t deal with a suicide, or a faith change, and they distanced themselves. It was the same with people who I thought were friends. Grief shows us who is able to stick around when the life waters get choppy. There are also others who show up in amazing ways. These are people who are living life in a way that allows them to join us where others can’t go.  

I believe the greatest thing I’ve seen and learned as I’ve traveled this path is that rushing into anything that can be slowed down will pay off in a huge way. Rushed relationships can end sadly; rushed life changes can land us in a pickle. Saying we “won’t ever_____” may cause us to need to recant the words. Judgment can come back to bite you, and wanting it to all go away will cause you to miss out on discoveries that will make all the difference. What we think we want at the beginning isn’t what we’ll need at the end of the process. We don’t need a quick fix: it’s a thoughtful journey, this walk in the woods. 

Mar 5

Change, One Fall at a Time

person sitting on wheelchair

“Raise your leg.”

It is spoken easily, and yet how often do we think about the effort it takes to lift a leg? Many of us don’t give it a second thought. We do it; we move our legs, our arms, without thought. Three weeks ago, that changed for me. I fell and broke my hip. I got lucky, as my hip didn’t shatter, and the surgeon put two screws in. I still need to stay off the hip for six weeks. I’m in a rehab center.

The “How’d you do it?” phase has come and gone. Let’s face it, citing the fall is only good for so long. What is before me is six weeks of learning to sit in a wheelchair, and being confident that I will leave here walking. It is about intention, and about understanding my reality. Right now, my reality is about getting my leg to do as I need it to do six times per day. Right now, getting my leg to raise a wee bit more with each cycle is the goal and the world I live in. Listening to my body with intention is altering the way I go about things.

This place has a two-month turnaround. Friendships aren’t made here because Europeans don’t do US-style friendships. This I know, and so I don’t expect any such thing here. I expect to work hard, to build strength, and to rehab a hip. And so I will focus on that. I watch as I tell myself to raise a leg, and I watch as the leg struggles to obey. Each day a little higher, a little easier, and somewhat stronger. I marvel at what I do as I sit in a wheelchair that is locked in the center of my room, and I am becoming more secure in many things. I need to do this, and so I dive into it.

The courage to heal from pain and trauma in one’s life is a challenge that some choose to hold on to with all they have, because they understand that the only way forward is to go through it. Every time someone writes or phones a therapist, an act of courage is taking place. Saying that you need help is an intentional act.

The evening shift just came on. The transition to less-intense activities has begun: dinner, and then the evening. My work hours are coming up; many here will retire to bed and television. I’m on the younger side for this place.

I think about intentions. What will I learn tomorrow that I didn’t know today? What new low level will I need to grasp on to and raise to a new height? It’s about simple range of motion that I don’t have yet. Just like all change: raise it higher and fight the pain. I am learning, once again, to tell myself to raise the leg higher with each try! This is how change happens. One fall at a time.

May 22

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Putting the Sledgehammer Away

The last few days have been filled with tears, meditation, looking inward at the past, and realizing where I am in the present. Growth can hurt deep down. Growth is progress that we achieve because of the price we’re willing to pay for it.

I’ve spent fifty years pointing out how those of us in the disabled community need to raise our voices more and speak loudly—and boldly. Last week I authored a post about my experience in a crowded room. My friend Karen read it and told me that she felt as if I were plagiarizing her. How often has this happened to each of us? We come together and discover that our life experiences aren’t so different. The commonality of what we experience as persons with disability can be powerful. It creates bonding in ways nothing else does. It is a gift that I share with Karen, and with others.

“You too!!!?” While this happens all the time, the feeling that “I’m unique” is dispelled by finding out that no, once again, I’m not alone in the world. This realization is juxtaposed with the example of a child who thinks everyone sees as they do, but who knows deep down that they are “not like the other kids,” whether it be due to disability, being LGBTQ2S, or being a victim of abuse: the secret is out of the bag. Adulthood requires that we grapple with these issues.

There are times when our inner selves push each of us to stand up and fight for justice for ourselves or others. We fight to be heard, and to have our realities accepted. If we can’t fight, we’ll likely be trampled because we’re not always seen or heard. Sometimes in that fight we forget who we are; we fade to our unique gifts, talents, and insights. We become swept up in the fight for recognition. I’ve been in this place for forty of the fifty years that I’ve been advocating for justice and change and for listening to the marginalized voices.

This week it all came to a head when I was forced to look inward at where my journey had taken me. The work I desire to do now is more spiritual in nature. It is the work that honors where each of us are. Each of us are equal within this realm. It is not a place of the marginalized: it is a place of learning to love ourselves, and to accept our own authenticity.

This place is one that offers sanctuary to each of us. Here we stand on equal footing because it is our hearts and souls that are heard. In the realm of the soul and the heart, all are welcome, and all are equal at this table.

I spent two years becoming certified as a spiritual director. I spent time discovering the power of meditation. I’ve uncovered places in my heart and soul that have moved me in directions I would have not considered five years ago.

Some of this uncovering is due to my husband’s suicide. Suicide changes survivors. One of the changes is the questioning we must do around making assumptions of others and ourselves. Another change is that we come to understand that people can remove themselves from humanity in a matter of seconds. Some feel strongly that if we all feel a sense of belonging, we’ll choose to live. All of this becomes evident to us as survivors. It causes us to question old things in new ways. We see an old rainbow in a new way. It causes us to do a grand reframe of it all.

The paths we have walked no longer suit our needs. There is a restless feeling when we remain on that path. It is as if we’re binge-watching our life because we’re at a loss about where to go next. We want the old to work, but we know it won’t, and we must come to terms with the fact that we’ve outgrown the friendship, the relationship, the career, or our lives as we understand them. It is why some people shock family, friends, partners, and church members when they announce that they’re packing up and moving to that new place. “Where did that come from?” or “Wow, her death really did a number on him.” The reality is that for whatever reason, that life change was brewing beneath the surface, and the life-changing event was only the catalyst to promote action.

I’ve heard the “if you hadn’t gone to a therapist…” If I had not seen my first therapist, I would have never begun the self-exploration that I needed to do in my early twenties; it was the beginning of my soul work. I would have continued to believe that everything would be alright and settled for coasting through life.

Life isn’t a straight path. Life is bumpy, strewn with twists, bends, and curve balls. We’re challenged to sit with the unknown, and to ask new and unthinkable questions that we would not have dreamt of asking even the week before. Life is messy.

It was in this state that I engaged in a conversation with a friend yesterday. She listened, didn’t need to fix anything, and I know she’ll support me in my new direction. She can sit in the messy, the unknown. To her and to others I say thank you.

While it is the mystical that draws me into soul exploration, it is the practical that grounds me in the here and now. It is a desire to always improve who I am, and to not settle for less than who I can be in my fulness. It is my understanding and my life experience that keep me grounded in the fact that there are people on the margins of life, and that they struggle to have their voices heard, accepted, and acknowledged. I will not forget you. I cannot forget you because my waking reality—struggling to see, to hear, and to negotiate a crowded room—calls me to that remembrance. It is the struggle that I will always share with those who are disabled.

I’ll admit that walking a new life path is daunting. Can I do it? Will I fall and mess up? Will I be able to learn to discover new ways of being along this new path? In a way, I’m putting away the sledgehammer that I’ve used to break down walls that have limited me, and others. It is time to put the sledgehammer to rest. This path calls for a peaceful tool.

I know there will be restful places to sit and reflect because I’ve always found them. What I don’t know is where all of this is going, and that is perfectly OK. I’m able to smell the new air, take it in, explore its excitement. And so, I turn my back on the old, and face something new. I wonder where this will take me? Where do you need to go?

Feb 21

Semi-Rant

Death can numb us physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Most people don’t die without it affecting others with some level of trauma. Think about it. Even the person who dies in their sleep can have a partner wake up with a dead body beside them. There is trauma in this. 

While birth can be a joy-filled time, death isn’t. Sure, we might be thankful that they are out of pain, no longer suffering in other ways, or “at peace.” Death leaves the living with the reality of feeling and doing what we need to do to get through it and move forward. We can behave poorly after a death. Remember, we’re in no condition to think straight. Whether we realize it or not, we’re in the twilight zone. We’re not ourselves. We’re in the death bubble. Sooner or later, we’ll need to exit that bubble and get back on the conveyor belt of life.

Getting through the process is about reconfiguring our new lives to work without the loved one, or not-so-loved-one, in our lives. We’ll miss the former and think we can get on just fine without the latter—until something doesn’t go quite right. Then we’re facing the whatever it is and making it right. 

Anything can happen. Parents don’t think kids are grieving correctly; kids feel or think a parent should get over it; grandkids miss the grandparent who the parent is celebrating the death of, and they are numb to themselves and each other. 

All of a sudden, rifts develop; people once invited are uninvited, and people fight over petty things. What was not resolved in life becomes a nightmare for those who remain. There is more numbing, and it seems that we no longer notice the real pain. By now it might be all about anger, loss, and a grief we can’t speak of because those we thought would be there to hear our pain ran out on us to escape into their own pain. It’s a cycle, and it only resolves itself when someone says to themselves or others, “ENOUGH!!!!” 

If we’re lucky to have someone with the insight to call out the crazy, we might just get to a new place with it. That person may be you. You may be the only fix that there is. The reality of it all is that we can only fix ourselves. The great personal thaw means that you engage with yourself in the healing process. This can be the greatest challenge of all: to heal when no one else gets the repair work you are doing. 

In the seven years I’ve been dealing with my own grief and loss, and the pain of others, I’ve seen and heard some really painful stuff. I’ve asked myself why people move on too quickly and don’t do the work that would lead them to true peace, and then I think about the crazy of it all. 

Is it possible to have burnout from grief? Can someone burn out from too much pain? I think they can. I recall a health course I took in the fall semester of my second year of university work. I was sitting next to two guys as we all filled in the stress scale the professor had distributed. In the period of one year, I’d gone through two significant family deaths, made a major life change, and had checked a few other boxes. I looked at them; they looked at me, and all three of us realized that our scores were much too high to be normal. It was the nonverbal, silent signal of knowing. I wasn’t in my right mind. What was I doing there? At the end of that year, I moved home, found a therapist, and began to sort out my head. Looking back on all of it now, I realize that I’d had enough physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. I was so deep into grief that I didn’t know how deep I was into grief. I came out of it, and now understand the crazy. 

I believe that one of the things that saves us from yelling at others to get over it is that when we do the work of getting through it, we’re gifted with the understanding of the hard work that must be done. We’re able to hold compassion for the crazy place grief, loss, trauma, and burnout can carry us into. 

The work begins with a desire to pop the bubble of denial, and to seek for better ways of facing our pain. 

For some people, death is death: it is what happens at the end of life. It is what it is. For another group of people, death opens up a need to make sense of the existential mystery of why it might have happened. For yet a third group of people, they engage the theodicy mind trap. I’m sure there are other possibilities. It is to theodicy that I’ll turn my focus. 

Is it any wonder people turn from God when God gets abused? The use of theodicy— a way of explaining why God allows evil to happen—to explain loss, pain, and stuff that happens for unexplainable reasons can drive a soul mad. I understand that there are people who abuse, and even purposely damage, their own children. It is wrong, and I hope that such abusers are discovered and dealt with, and that their children are given a chance to live better lives. Children don’t sign up for mistreatment. Theodicy is a form of mistreatment, and is spiritually disrespectful to all human beings. Higher powers do not create death to teach someone a lesson, take someone because they are needed someplace else, expect us to bypass the grief process and focus on an afterlife, or cause intentional suffering (for instance, the birth of a disabled child). 

Tragic things happen, and we must face them honestly. Nature does strange things to bodies, and we must accept nature doing its thing. The human gene is a tricky thing, and we can be brought up short by the screwy things our genes do. Early in life I had to learn that nature behaves in unruly ways. It just is. That being said, I’ll return to the stuff that can be controlled. 

I can, and need, to control my own behavior. I can decide to behave kindly towards others in pain. As difficult as it is during the process of grief, loss, painful experiences, and whatever else I experience, I can choose to apologize, show compassion, and make amends as needed. In the end it takes less energy to show kindness to myself and others. It also keeps my brain well balanced. I’ll cry, scream, get angry, look in the mirror, face down the monsters, and make peace with it all. In the long run, that will serve me well.

This has been a nice semi-rant. I hope you learned from it.

Dec 9

person carrying backpack walking on a path

On My Way to Somewhere Else

Losses in our lives happen in many ways, and my greatest loss happened while I was trying to get to somewhere else that wasn’t on my agenda, or at least not in print. It happened in a way I won’t forget: a walk downstairs to find an altered life. A note on the dinner table telling me where his body was. That was the part of the promise he did keep.

We write scripts for our lives, and when they are interrupted the jolt can be confusing and difficult to understand. While we’re making our way along the road, the demons interrupt our peaceful walk and give us the boot off our carefully manicured path into something more like sludge, mess, and unexpected confusion.

At first, we panic, and then we try to extricate ourselves from this place, only to find ourselves pulled further into the mess of the sludge. When we realize that we can best exit the sludge by remaining calm, relaxing, and working with it, we’re free to embrace it. We can then deal with the mess in this new place. We figure out that the best method for getting free from where we are now trapped is exploring it for alternative exit options. That is how most grief and loss journeys begin: a surrender to the unknown.

I got out of the immediate sludge state and realized that there was a mountain in front of me, and that I needed to go through it to reach the place I needed to get to. That was both a relief and rather terrorizing.

With the unwanted interruption to our lives, we forget where we were headed, focusing on the path before us that has become cluttered with boulders, fallen trees, and strange critters that inhabit the once pristine path we thought we were on, and realizing that we’ve been transported to a much different place altogether. Where are we? What is this about, and will it be a help or hindrance?

No, we’re not in Oz or anyplace like it, though a part of us may wish for ruby slippers that we can click to take us magically back to before we wound up wherever this is now. We don’t get the slippers. Instead, we receive a walking stick that will come in handy in turning over the rocks, giving us leverage to lift the heavy trees that block our route, and in testing the strange new critters to see if they are friend or foe.

It’s taken several minutes to construct this, and yet the descent into this place happens instantly. We’re just not aware that within seconds of hearing they’re dead, “I’m leaving you,” “I’m moving out to pursue…,” or whatever the loss is, we’re sent by our mind into this place. As we grapple with it in those first few moments, we realize that our control is gone. Will we ever be the same? Will our world ever feel the same?

The Answer Everyone Wants

In this place we ask: When will it end? And when will things return to normal? The honest answer that we eventually discover is that we’ll develop a new normal, discover a new life path, and renegotiate what our personal universe looks like and what it is filled with. We forget about the old somewhere that had held us captive and begin searching for a new somewhere else. The catch to this search is that things no longer work the way they once did. The topsy-turvy has flung us into the unknown. All we can do is thrash around until we find something to grab onto that feels stable. 

We start to learn that the tears, the missing, and the uncertainty will fade over time, and in their place the texture and quality of what is present in our lives changes. Slowly, we stop asking when and start focusing on the how to of this new place. This leads us to finding a support system, a new village of people that is populated with those who will become our new friends. They understand where we are! They’ve been in the sludge, gotten out, and faced their own mountain. They’ve dismissed some old village residents due to the fact that they left the village or are not able to attend to the needs in the village at this time. We find a therapist who speaks our language and we seek out spiritual direction, or stumble into another path altogether. As we gain strength and our concentration returns, we begin reading books and are able to question and act on those questions. 

This new place of discovery is exciting, scary, and wide open. Oh, the options that we can explore!  Slowly, the places we were headed fade away, and we’re left only with new things to discover. 

You know how people say that we’ve changed? We have! If we do the work of grief, loss, and pain well enough, we reinvent ourselves. There are old things, new things, and a bunch of creation waiting to spring forth. It can all be good. In the meantime, the question we wanted answered disappears as we become involved in the process of creating new life within ourselves. New life and meaning are unique to each of us.

The tears and the missing are still present. They’ve taken on a new form and texture. For me, it was somewhere in my year three that I noticed the real change. How did this happen? It wasn’t about time; it was processing and a world view change. It is something we experience and understand due to the work we do around our grief, loss, and pain, effecting change deep within. 

Noticing the Gift

For some people, the loss and the grief that are encountered become a gift. What? How can this be? I’ll admit that on August 29, 2016, if you had told me I’d be typing these words in 2021, I’d have had said something to the effect of “You’re nuts!” I’m typing this and I know I’m not nuts. Telling someone at the beginning of the process that change will happen is counterproductive to the process. There are some “please do’s” and “please don’ts” that are essential to observe.

Relationships can trap us, cause us to shortchange ourselves, or make us second-guess what we want in our lives—to name just a few of the things that can happen. The fact that she cheated on you and didn’t want to work it out is sad. After the heartache passes, a new discovery of freedom comes.

He or she is now gone; the love you once had will always remain, and now you are asking new questions. You want something different from before, and finding it is a good thing. You haven’t changed; you’ve grown! You are beginning to trust your own knowing, and this is an essential component of finding the new place of existence.

The gift of the tragedy is not pleasant. We are called to understanding through the unveiling of new options that we truly have choices if look and access them in the present. It is what we find buried in the rubble that was once sitting out in the open, waiting for us to discover it for the first time. 

We couldn’t see it where we were because our understanding of our lives was focused on the life we had then. We weren’t stumbling along the path, attempting to find the new points of entrance into the new place that we need to get to.

I know some who have needed to step into employment for the first time in their lives and now report feeling fulfillment in a way they never have before. I know others who took the chance of a new career. Somehow, the lack of security allowed them to risk big! For others, it is doing the same thing with fresh new insight into the things they value most. For me, it resulted in several things. My favorite is that I returned to school for a certificate in spiritual direction. I love the program! Would I have discovered this had I not been widowed? NO! It took me moving to a new place and finding a new path to walk to do what I’m doing now.

Along the way, we employ new navigation strategies, discover our “rose rooms,” and come to an understanding that the interruption that occurred on the way to somewhere else, while tragic, has become a touchstone in our lives.

Aug 4

Revisiting Being Heard

This blog has a title that dates back to an incident with my husband’s psychiatrist. At the end of our conversation, when I thanked him for listening to me, he replied, “You needed to be heard.” His acknowledgement that this issue had to be addressed was huge for me. I left his office with my husband and realized that I had a title for the blog I was working on publishing. That exchange created a bridge of trust with me. I would need that trust as the years went on.  

That one incident opened me up to a new understanding of how validation through truly hearing with the heart and mind can alter someone’s life path. A good decade or so later our exchange still stands out in my mind. That doc really took the time to hear, respond, and accept my truth.  

Having said all of this, I’d like to share more on this subject as it relates to another healing moment in my life.  

Something happened to me after Jon’s death that was so hurtful I had to put it on the back burner for two years. I won’t share what happened because to do so would expose several people who, to this day, think they did a really great thing. It wasn’t a great thing. In 2019 I began to address that hurtful act. It took one year to completely resolve the issue. It wasn’t fun, and I’m glad it’s over.  

The catch—and there always is a catch—is that I had a well of pain that was connected to people’s behavior towards me. That wasn’t so easy to wipe out of my mind, or to repair. The reason why is that several misguided people thought that they were helping me in my loss when they were, in fact, doing great damage. The key to the resolution was, and is, gaining enough perspective over time to be able to step back and decide how to best handle the matter.  

This is complex in that telling someone what they’ve done isn’t always the best resolution for them. They most likely won’t view the event in the same way that you do, or have the insight to think it through. You might come up against strong resistance when explaining how hurtful such actions are. I tested things out with one of the parties involved. This person couldn’t understand why I was so angry. I realized that it was not productive to force the issue.  

The rage and pain were very much present. What can you do in a situation like this? 

Death rearranges the address book. In my case, Jon’s death did a grand Viennese Waltz through the pages of my book. People who I believed to be friends disappeared. Family who couldn’t cope with my new reality disappeared. It left me staring at once-full pages wondering how—and if—I could rebuild with new people in my life. It served as a witness that grief, and the lack of comfort others have with it, brings great pains to those who must walk through the lonely terrain.  

Fortunately, I’ve begun to build a community of new friends who view life as I do. I’ve paid a steep price for these new beginnings. It was towards this new group of people, who are becoming friends, that I turned, seeking a listening ear. But I needed more than just a listening ear; I needed to be fully heard. I found that person. I was heard in a genuine and caring manner. It allowed me to let go.  

Not being heard can cause someone to become stuck in the quagmire of pain, loss, anger, trauma, disappointment, and so many other things that I won’t list here. Not being fully heard can cause us, as humans, to shut things down, to cling so tightly to the pain in our souls that we can’t find the ladder out of the quagmire.  

Being heard—and truly hearing another person—may require that we face some painful places in our own souls while accompanying them through a darkness they want out of.  

Being heard means opening ears and stopping the responding and questioning, in order to allow for understanding. Hearing and being heard involve authentic empathy from the person doing the hearing. It is a skill.  

I am by no means perfect at doing this. Sometimes I blow it. When I realize I’ve blown the “hearing,” I go back, apologize, and work even harder at doing a better job during the next hearing.  

If you’ve been fully heard, you understand that one of the feelings that opens up for a person in this process is liberation! We are liberated from our burden, the trauma, the pain, the struggle of the choice we’re making—we’re set free to explore new and colorful options. Maybe we are enabled to take that first step on a road to someplace new. This hearing might allow us to stop the repeating “sound bite blasting” in our heads about what we could—or should—have done.  

Being heard entirely is a gift. It is one that we unwrap with joy, understanding that it is not as common as it should be. It frees our spirits, calling us forward to new ground. It opens us to new relationships of understanding and trust. When we engage in the power of complete hearing, it changes us because our views and hearts are altered. We can no longer choose to unhear or not see what we’ve become a witness to. Each time a person is truly heard, it changes the world.   

May 15

Today I’m Thankful for Science

*Note: This was written in 2015. Putting it up now seemed right.

Today I’m thankful for science. I am glad that I am breathing, and functional, and that I get to go to physical therapy. I am glad that during this coming week I’ll begin the process of strengthening my arm and my leg. I’m glad that there are people who understand what it is all about.

I’m thankful that there are doctors, and others, that took the time to sit in classrooms and labs, and learn about what is going on in my brain. I’m thankful that they had the curiosity to study and learn. I’m glad that there were people who went before, who allowed interns and residents to work on them and study them so that they could get an education.

I think back to my days as an intern in grad school and my postgrad work. I’m thankful for clients who let me learn via the process of working with them. Next week on the 27th of November, there is a day of gratitude that is celebrated in the U.S. For those who are U.S. citizens: What will you give thanks for? What is your life all about? Who has made your life better this year? Whom do you owe a great thank-you to?

Once again I will thank my sister for the trip to the U.S. I will thank her kids for helping it to be a success. I am thankful for the fact that I was able to spend three weeks with my mother. I’m thankful that I got that time because I don’t know if I’ll ever have that again. (Thanks for the bash!!!)

I am thankful for friends. I wish I could see more of you, but you are there and I’m here, and our hearts are together.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the complex that we forget the very simple. I am writing a simple post because I want to remind you of the many things you have. You have the ability to move your hands, to walk to the mailbox, and to see the sun. You can open the box or click with the mouse. Somewhere you know someone who CAN’T. During the next year, pledge to extend to them a service they need. Pick up the phone and call them more often.

Gratitude is a two-way street. We need to take the time to be thankful for the stuff we have. We need to create things for others to be thankful for. It is about giving and receiving.

It is raining and cold outside, and I’m inside where it is toasty and warm. Penelope just popped by to say hello and stick her tongue out at me. I look up and see my back-lit parasols that Jon put up here in my workspace. I owe him a great debt of gratitude for the last five weeks. He has cooked and cleaned and comforted me when I’ve been sad and blue. I cannot repay this but I can give a thankful heart and a very public mention.

On Tuesday I will have my first physical therapy session and I hope I get pushed to the max. I will also have my first ergotherapy session and that, too, will be a challenge. I can’t wait!!!!

Nov 19

4 Comments

Raw


***In the spirit of this post I’ve left it unedited. 

I’ve been thinking about this death, grief, life and recovery-from-it-all-thing. After 22 days of being in a snarky and angry state I will speak. 

December sucks. December sucks worse than raw lemons.  December has been my undoing this year. Why? I have first lived through our anniversary day. Now I must face Christmas alone for the first time in my life.  This must be faced alone because that is how growth intends for it to be: I can’t run from it. Growth isn’t easy. Deep growth requires that we look at painful stuff head on and go through it alone. Some things just ARE.  

In my closet, the Christmas decorations are in a large box. The tree is packed away in a box and secured to the pipes that run through the house.  It could be reached but I have no desire to inflict pain on myself. I do have a smaller tree that sits atop a cabinet. This I’ve decorated with the few things that Jon and I have purchased or been given.  Amsterdam, Salzburg, a wedding present…these items represent the sacred. It isn’t that the sacred is not on the large tree it is rather, that I know that putting up that larger tree is not a place I can take myself emotionally.  Maybe next year.   

I just want this to go away.  I want it over with. The season to me is dead. It hurts to be alone with this and there is no fix for it.  People don’t try to fix it. This fix that I have to wade through is only for me, myself and I. I’m not afraid of doing the wading as I’ve done lots of wading through awful stuff in the past year plus several months.

In talking with others who are making the journey to someplace else after being left by a loved one who completed suicide I’m finding that at least I’m not alone: this is common. Some of us know what we want or need and some of us don’t have a clue.  We all want it gone.

I’m finding that family and friends distance themselves because, for the most part, they don’t really understand what to say.  SAY ANYTHING. Say that you love me, that you care! Say it with cookies and chocolate. Say it with an Audible gift card. Say it with a phone call or an email. JUST SAY SOMETHING and don’t run from me.  Don’t run from us. We don’t have the plague! We’re surviving the worst death that can be had. We’re sorting out a mess of trauma and conflicted thought. We’re doing it while the world is getting happy.  We’re doing it as many of you are busy wrapping gifts to place under trees that for some of us will not be decorated. We just want to get through it. We don’t want to think about the missing gifts, the person who should be present, but that is no longer at the table.  And yet, we remember. We can’t stop remembering and the tears that are bitter, come.

For us our landscapes have changed: permanently.  We can’t get it back, and in my case I wouldn’t want it back because of what Jon suffered. 

I miss the sneakiness of the plans. I miss the thoughtfulness of finding his gift.  I miss his joy of opening it up. I miss him torturing me with the suspense of hiding something delightful from me until Christmas morning…he was so good at that.  It is no more.

In time December will take a new form in my mind and my heart.  For right now it is bleak, empty and frozen. RAW seems to be the theme for now.  It is raw at its worst and soft at its best. It has to stand in this manner right now.

In the future I will create a new landscape that is uniquely mine but for this year, I must get through the hell that is: RAW.

From The Netherlands Peace to all and to all a good 2018

Gail