Flowing through grief, finding my way!

Quick update on writing progress:

Both yesterday and today I worked on the book about my Grandma Mary and I got soo far! I now have 23 pages of writing, which equates to 15782 words in two days!!!

I also found that I am working to heal many empty and hollow and potent things that needed healing within my being along the way as well.

Later in this blog I will share some excerpts from the book, but first I wanted to share some things that helped me to heal through grief recently in case it also helps you.

Let people in:

I know this sounds tough and contrary to what we are told about sharing our emotions, but for me at least it has helped a lot to write to people about the process of working through grief, especially friends and family on social media. When I reach out to people with an earnest and heartfelt need and they are able to come back with something beautiful to share in exchange it completes me. I know that this won't work for just anyone and there is a lot of vulnerability in reaching out because it might bring back energetic responses you weren't expecting, but honestly it has been so worth it for me.

I have learned through this process of reaching out that people are rooting for me and that my success matters to more than just my own heart. People are hoping that through this shroud of grief there is a hopeful new beginning in it for me. It seems to help others to see that I am trying to carry on in the ways that I am intuitively drawn because it creates linkages for others who are seeking to find ways to move through their own agonizing grief. I feel that if I can carry the torch it might symbolize the hope that someone else can carry their own torch in lighting the path back to life.

Let it flow and trust cathartic moments:

Wow, our emotions can be so potent and so preciously vulnerable. Yet, for these very reasons, grief can be very hard to swallow. It can be so potent and powerful to allow them the time and space to unfold in the ways that they wish and it can bring us such great blessings.  I tend to fight my emotions, not wanting to open those floodgates for fear that I will be caught in a perpetual veil of unending tears. I am so grateful that somehow my body and mind would not allow me to ignore those tears any longer.

I was growing sick the other day and I was not able to discern what was making me feel that way. I realized suddenly when I went out into the cold yard and wandered around alone trying to find peace from those emotions, that I was suffering grief over missing Grandma. Yet, I was ignoring and holding back that needed release because I told myself I needed to be strong to get through the next challenges of life without her. Then, after standing in the glistening snow something tender came upon me, a single tear over this loss turned into a torrential flood of sorrow. I cried like a lone wolf howling as I clung to the Linden tree outside for comfort. It was such a blessing and afterwards I felt lighter, sleepier and less anxious overall. What a blessing to have trusted that emotional outflow without fearing it!

Talk to the dead and sense their witnessing/responding:

While I was crying by the tree, I realized I was talking to Grandma and telling her all that was grieving me. I told her that I was missing her and that I wasn't sure of even the next step to take and I was lost along the way and stuck in my confusion over what to do next. It was so nice to feel that she was near enough to witness and hear me. I also was able to let go of the fear that I was drowning her in tears and to see that wherever she was, she comfortably and safely could witness me without it hurting her or taking her away from her heaven. This act of conversing with her was such a blessing and if you can find a way to do this through a letter or blog post, piece of art or heartfelt conversation, I definitely recommend it.

Ok here is an unedited excerpt from the book:

The other day we went for a drive and walk to a local park beside the lake. I brought a kite along. It was a cheap plastic kite with a ‘Barbie’ symbol printed in it’s face and I barely got it in the air up in the prairie, but I felt guided by an intuitive feeling to walk along a barely visible narrow foot path that appeared in the high grasses until I was standing among the tall leafy reeds which were dancing in the wind. There, the kite took off almost immediately and I felt like I was playing with Grandma again as a child.

It was almost as if she was the kite and I was on the other end and her playful energy was back with me again dancing in the breeze…it reminded me of memories of us in the blustery winds together wild, free and barefoot playing hide and seek among the pine trees of her house when she was younger. she knew so much about how to make merry and have fun. I miss that about her so much…she lost that gift some during her later years even though I tried to bring it back to her in vain, life pains and aging indignities chased away that light gradually until her whole life energy was with God….and it makes me sad that I wasn’t better and bringing her into joy, but I myself am, or so it seems, a forlorn individual by nature. Yet, this kite play was just like being with her and I felt like she was with me on my journey out there at the park.

It felt so utterly joyful because I heard somewhere that those who die stay with their loved ones and wrap them in an embrace.  There are books people write after a near death experiences wherein they document that they are able to go and travel to see their loved ones carrying out life tasks as if they were above them witnessing them like angels. It comforted me to think that I was showing Grandma my life, acting as her personal tour guide. When I saw that smiling face of “Barbie” on the kite and the long streamers hanging down I felt like such a giddy child imagining her helping me to find joy again like she always did when I was young. I took the kite to the old metal bridge that stands over the river water to feed the lake and there the wind really took the kite sailing and I stood giddy beyond words over the experience.  It felt like the whole entirety of the adventure was short-lived and the walk hard on me since I had taken to sitting quite a bit during the end days of my Grandma’s life and my physical well being dwindled.  I didn’t realize how much I looked to her and modeled my life around hers in her later days and I now feel this terrible void in her passing.

In case you are moved by what you read, here is the crowdfunding link for the book I am writing:
A book for Grandma Mary