Grief From Loss

Into the deep

Dearest Readers,

This week, I had a dear loved one pass away unexpectedly. I thought about if I would send a newsletter today and if so, what it would be. During times like these, thought and action and time become muddled. And I am a human—not AI—so I am limited with capacity, but I am learning to see the beauty in these limits. There is pain, but also beauty.

As a result, today’s post is brief but does not tread in the shallows. It dives into the deep. I hope it can meet you safely, beautifully and lovingly there—with care.

Love,

“He is now with our Lord.”

I saw the words flash across my screen and a tsunami of feeling crashed against me. A breath and then great sobs were raking my body.

I didn’t expect it.

Do we ever?

Even though time had drawn near for a few days, nothing could have prepared me for the waves.

And the ones that would come at unexpected times the following days. At a stop light as I remembered a fond memory. Outside the rental car building to get a car to drive the great distance to the funeral when my husband asked me if I wanted to go to the viewing. Unexpected. Full body. Flooded.

Life is a strange thing. And death even stranger.

It causes one to face mortality. To blink away the haze of busyness and remember that you are you, looking out your own two eyes like no one else in the universe and that phenomenon of consciousness in this body is so fleeting. Impermanent. Temporary. It feels humbling, strange, and somewhat mystical all at the same time.

I left Christianity a year or two ago—a slow fade from a religeon that had finite rules about death.

But now that I have stepped outside of those tightly gripped claws—I find I am at peace without those rules. The pressure is gone. The fear. The judgement. It comforts me to know he has passed from this hard life into life itself—with us all and me.

The night I learned of my loved one’s passing, a lightning storm cascaded across the spring Midwest sky. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I marveled at it—the wonder and awe of nature—as I sat on the steps of our deck with my dog, transfixed.

Great flashes backlit by purples and blacks forked like vast tree branches across a velvety expanse. Dozens. All at once. They appeared together like synchronized dancers and I thought of him. It felt like he was with me, saying, “Hey.”

He was there and I was here, but we were parts of a whole—connected. Maybe now more than ever.

And I thought about what I would write in this letter. I am not sure what I know today beyond this feeling of grief. I do know the pink eyeshadow I usually use somehow made my eyes look more swollen and red. And that time is strange when you’re getting ready for funeral services. It empties and fills and is there and gone.

My husband and I kept commenting on this with each other through the rush of seemingly back-to-back events throughout the funeral weekend. Suddenly it would be five minutes past the time we were to leave for one of the gatherings and it had felt like hours had passed in an instant. Our brains are strange things when dealing with grief.

And lastly, I took out my phone at the end of the funeral service (hoping no one judged me for typing on my phone at that time) to write down something the speaker had said:

“Someone told me once that grief was an expression of love—unexpressed love. The love we still felt like we had to give.”

I thought this was beautiful.

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*All illustrated images within this essay are hand drawn by author & artist Alice Wild. All rights reserved.