“good grief” a story about grieving
I’ve had the pleasure of grieving several times. That may sound strange and awful but I find it comforting that I have loved so many people deeply and privileged to honor their life while I’m still breathing. My first memory of loss was as a very young child, my great grandmother and great grandfather. We spent countless weekends running around their house with our cousins. It was my favorite time to see my family and also feel the presence of so many generations under one roof. Taking care of each other, playing, cooking and telling stories. Not all of them have been that beautiful. I also have had several tragic experiences and losses of during my childhood. We were always outside, we were always able to witness different opportunities and casualties.
There is a reason humans need to experience being outside and in the community. Taking risks and making mistakes.
I can remember a friend being hit by a train, another by a truck, a few in fatal DUI accidents and a best friend murdered our freshman year of high school. These were cathartic to say the least.
In between we grieve divorces, relationships, pets, jobs, lifestyles, those are what I call “the practice of grieving”. They are still painful but happen more often. You will grieve these emotional experiences but you do build emotional strength and character as you process them. The choice is ours how to remember and honor all of them. That’s what we are left with. It’s up to us to lean into the feelings and the healing.
I’ve also had the pleasure and displeasure of sitting with a child with depression. Let me explain the difference. Knowing my own children or students have come to me with darkness ignites the light within me to support. Everything in that moment fades away and my priority is to sit with them. For this I am honored and grateful to be chosen to be there with them. The displeasure is sitting with them while your heart is heavy and broken. That is the really hard work, and we will all face that in our lives at least a couple times or several.
While you are in a a painful stage of grief look for the light source. The air doesn’t seem breathable, so you take a deep deep breath and rest. You sit, you listen and you rest. You get quiet and hear more than you’ve ever heard before. You look for the messages carrying any source of light. Sometimes we hold onto every butterfly, dragonfly, bird or any amazing creature that appears during our thoughts. That is a spiritual symbol, I really believe in them.
Nature is one of my favorite solutions on how to move forward.
Simply immersing in the sageness of nature in order to become aligned in all the environments again.
We are called to stillness and aloneness; a little time away from the action of the urban is so beneficial for the soul.
Elements of our fast-moving culture undeniably weaken our connection with nature. When we experience loss, when we are grieving, it is more important than ever to find ways back to the outdoors, to spend time in the healing power of nature.
If there is no safe outdoor space where you live, if you are confined indoors, even in a hospital bed, you can rest in nature just looking out a window to a patch of sky or gazing at a plant indoors.
When we spend time in restorative places, it becomes effortless to watch leaves floating down from trees, to notice a reflection of the sky in a puddle, or to hear a bird calling.
Being in nature lets us find ourselves. Some of us feel connected when we are in an environment bigger than ourselves.
Nature also mourns its deaths for a moment, and then moves on. We can look at this as a painful lesson but also add purpose to it. Maybe taking a happiness hike, kayaking or canoeing quietly during a hopeful sunset or promising sunrise, going to a park, sitting on a bench and just listening to the joyful giggles of children. Add a bird bath and feeder to your gardens, a hammock, a comfortable chair and just sit. Meditate. Pray. Sing. Journal. Paint. Draw. Listen.
Remember this, nature does not seek to silence a damaged, confused heart or distract it with noise and activity. The wild is calling you, hope you will answer.
Thich Nhat Hanh told a lovely story that helped me greatly when I lost a loved one under difficult circumstances.
Maybe this will help someone else as well:
“The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.
I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.
From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.”
