This week marks the three-year anniversary of my Mom’s passing, and next month marks the second anniversary of my Dad’s passing. I miss my parents deeply and think of them daily. Over the past few years I have spent time spiraling in and out of grief. I have also experienced quiet moments filled with love, gratitude, and a knowing that my parents (along with all my loved ones) are forever close in my heart.
THE IMPORTANCE OF OTHER PEOPLE IN OUR HEALING PROCESS
Navigating grief can feel overwhelming for many people, especially given how isolated some people can become in their grieving process. This past year has made it even more challenging, as we’ve become more isolated and have had to shift the way we’ve learned to cope. Even if you are physically alone, you do not have to be emotionally isolated.
I’ve learned through my own walk with grief how important the presence of other people are in healing and coming to a place of peace and acceptance around death and loss. We cannot grieve alone. When we are surrounded by others, it reminds us of life in the present moment, it keeps us grounded, and allows us to accept death and grief as intrinsic to being human.
VALUING OUR PRECIOUS HUMAN LIFE
This past year and the loss of so many lives due to Covid, as well as other causes of death, has made the notion of impermanence a reality for far too many people throughout the world who are grieving the loss of family, friends and loved ones.
Buddhist Dharma teaches us that death is certain; it is the timing of our death that is uncertain.
In Buddhism we learn about impermanence and how to meditate on death each day. In keeping death close in our awareness we learn how to value our precious human life and consider how we want to live our life. We can ask ourselves the important questions: “What do I really want today?” and “Who do I want to be today?” These questions can help us to live more in the present moment with greater awareness, kindness, and perhaps with more compassion for ourselves and others.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE ALONE IN YOUR GRIEF
When we’re grieving, sometimes we want to curl up and shut out the world. But other times, the presence and guidance of another person can help us not only accept death as a part of life, but feel better. I am here for you. I can help you navigate your loss, come to a place of acceptance, and find moments of joy. You will learn how to hold onto your loved ones who have passed not with discomfort, but with love and peace. If you need support during this healing process, reach out to me online or email me at [email protected].
I came across David Whyte’s beautiful poem Farewell Letter last week. It feels timely as I come upon the anniversary of my parents’ passing. Whyte’s poem takes us into the heart of the dying mother, allowing us to feel her deep love for her son and to sense a kind of peace and acceptance around the ending of her life.
Farewell Letter:
She wrote me a letter
after her death
and I remember
a kind of happy light
falling on the envelope
as I sat by the rose tree
on her old bench
at the back door,
so surprised by its arrival
wondering what she would say,
looking up before I could open it
and laughing to myself
in silent expectation.
Dear son,
it is time
for me
to leave you.
I am afraid
that the words
you are used
to hearing
are no longer mine
to give,
they are gone
and mingled
back in the world
where it is no longer
in my power
to be their first
original author
nor their last loving bearer.
You can hear
motherly
words of affection now
only from your own mouth
and only
when you speak them
to those
who stand
motherless
before you.
As for me I must forsake
adulthood
and be bound gladly
to a new childhood.
You must understand
this apprenticeship
demands of me
an elemental innocence
from everything
I ever held in my hands.
I know your generous soul
is well able to let me go
you will in the end
be happy to know
my God was true
and I find myself
after loving you all so long,
in the wide,
infinite mercy
of being mothered myself.
P.S. All your intuitions were true.
…
FAREWELL LETTER
in Everything is Waiting For You
Many Rivers Press ©
https://davidwhyte.com/…/everything-is-waiting-for-you
…
Carrying on this little theme and the red, indissoluble thread that connects mothers and grief:
A mother remains a mother even after they have passed away, and in many ways the conversation between mother and son, mother and daughter, if we allow it, can deepen, intensify and lead to new forms of love, long after their going. My mother had lost her own mother at just thirteen years old, and I had the strongest intuition just after she had passed, that she was returning to a childhood that had ended far too soon in the Ireland of her youth. To acknowledge a mother, but also to let her go into her own personhood, independent of the continually astonishing fact that she brought us into this world, may be one of the more difficult steps in the deepening maturity of that indissoluble bond. DW
