Tag: loss

Letting Go

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My Uncle Mike passed away this week at eighty-three years old. He was my dad’s older brother and he played an incredibly important part in my young life. Losing someone you love is never easy, even when it is expected, or it is their time in life. It leaves behind an absence that cannot be filled. A person-sized void.

My uncle was strong, resilient and smart. He was a boxer in his youth and he played rugby in his forties. He always smelled faintly of cologne and soap. He gave big bear hugs and he was always laughing. We spent many summer afternoons visiting his cabin on the shores of Lake Tahoe: located just down the road from Obexers Marina and Chambers Landing. The coolers were always teeming with ice, pop and beer, and the charcoal barbecue smoked on the wooden porch for hours, cooking endless burgers and hot dogs for the friends and family that always filled his house. I remember sitting on the swing in the yard with my sister, our bare feet skimming the dry grass, watching the adults laughing and talking all around us, and feeling very happy to be a part of it all.

One of my favourite family photos was taken when I was about ten years old. It captures a beautiful moment with my California relatives: Aunt Charlis, Cousin Kate, Aunt Susie, Grammie, Dad, Mom and Uncle Mike. With the exception of my Dad, all of the adults in the picture are now gone. I feel their absence as a deep aching in my heart. I realize that when it was taken, many of them were roughly the same age that I am now. I remember how old and wise they seemed to me back then. Now I know the truth. None of us really ever ‘grow up’: we only grow older. Although I am an ‘adult’, I will forever remain seventeen in my heart. It is now my job to pretend that I know what I am doing, and keep things steady for the younger members of the family: to guide them as best I can with what I have learned along the way.

I was incredibly fortunate to visit my uncle this past October. I knew it would be the last time I would see him, so I tried to cherish every moment that we had together. I told him how much I loved him and what he meant to me. I gave him extra hugs and I inhaled his smell. I created memories to draw on now that he is gone. I am so grateful to have had him, and all of my beloved family members, in my life. Sometimes you get a long time together and sometimes it is cut short. Although I believe he is happy and at peace now, reunited with his loved ones in the world beyond this one, I miss him. It is never, ever easy to let go.

Letting Go

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As the loved ones around me age, and grow closer to death, or I return to a beloved place that is now unrecognizable, it causes me to reflect upon the people, places and experiences that are gone. It is so difficult to let go and accept when things have changed. There is a tender part of me that deeply aches for everything to return to how it once was.

A dear friend of mine recently reminded me that nothing truly dies or ends, as it lives on in your heart and in your memory. There is such truth in this perspective. All I need to do is close my eyes, put my hands on my heart, and remember. It is all there. The other truth is that change is not always bad, it is simply different. In fact, it often allows for new opportunities to emerge, and new relationships to develop.

Resistance to the unknown is a natural human response and it embodies the First Noble Truth of dissatisfaction and suffering:

The First Noble Truth describes the nature of life and our personal experience of this impermanent, ever changing world. All beings desire happiness, safety, peace and comfort. We desire what is satisfying, pleasurable, joyful and permanent. However, the very nature of existence is impermanent, always changing, and therefore incapable of fully satisfying our desire. Inevitably, we experience frustration, anger, loss, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction.

Life is in constant change, and changes such as birth, old age, sickness, and death can bring dissatisfaction or suffering. Suffering may arise from being associated with people or conditions that are unpleasant, from being separated from people we love, or conditions we enjoy, from not getting what we desire, or from getting what we desire then losing it. Even our own thoughts and feelings are impermanent, constantly changing. Inevitably, all physical, emotional, and mental conditions will change.

Insight into the First Noble Truth: To overcome dissatisfaction and suffering, it is essential that we understand and accept the ever-changing, impermanent nature of life; we acknowledge the presence of dissatisfaction and suffering; we understand the very nature of suffering, and we embrace suffering compassionately, without fear or avoidance.

Source: Naljor Creations

Slipping Away

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As my mother slowly slips away into the unknown abyss of Alzheimer’s disease, I am helpless to stop it. As she walks deeper into the dark and dense forest of her mind, I have to let her go. The entry is barred. I cannot follow her in or bring her back. My role is to bear witness and to nurse my broken heart. To tend to those of us left behind. To be strong. I am familiar with this uncomfortable territory. I have been here before. I long for things to return to how they once were. I yearn for the past.

When I look into her eyes, I do not know where she has gone. There is a glimmer of the woman that I once knew. She smiles in recognition of my face. She kisses my lips with love. But there is a dullness in her gaze and a slowness to her gait. We walk in familiar circles along linoleum lined hallways. She talks about everything and nothing: words crashing together, landing in a tangled pile on the floor.

The fiercely independent woman who once forged her own path in life is now reliant on the help of others to complete the most basic of tasks. A life that was once large and colourful is now contained and beige. I am grateful for the people that help us. They are our community. We lean on one another; but I am sad for a loss that is not yet fully a loss. Her memory is breaking into little crumbs. She is leaving pieces behind her: trying to remember her way home.

I am mourning my mother while she still stands before me. It is a strange and confusing time; and I carry a sadness deep in my heart. It is a weight heavy in my pocket. I try to stay in the moment and appreciate the small things, without looking forward or gazing back, “How are you now?…and now?…and now? What do you need? How can I ease your pain?”

It is hard to allow space for heart break. The discomfort is easy to push against and resist; but it needs to breathe and express itself or it will take up permanent residence inside of the body. This is my work at the moment. Allowing the pain to just be. Feeling it and letting it burn. Knowing that it will eventually pass. Everything is transitory. Remaining grateful for the opportunity to love so deeply in my life that my heart can be broken open, and come back together, time and time again.

As Glennon Doyle summarizes it beautifully in her book Untamed: “…I learned that there is a type of pain in life that I want to feel. It’s the inevitable, excruciating, necessary pain of losing beautiful things: trust, dreams, health, animals, relationships, people. This kind of pain is the price of love, the cost of living a brave, open-hearted life – and I’ll pay for it.”

There is no way out but through

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Woman In Nature In Sunset. People In Nature.beautiful Woman In M

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” ~Leonard Cohen

Over the past ten months, I have become intimate with heartbreak and familiar with loss. My twenty-one year relationship abruptly ended. My beloved dog Maggie died; and two of my close family members are very unwell. It has been both an exceptionally difficult and a transformative time.

Heartbreak is a visceral experience. Your heart literally feels like it is breaking inside of your chest. It clenches. It aches. Pain manifests itself as tightness in your throat and tension in your shoulders. It pulls down heavily on your ankles and arms. It whispers seductively in your ear: “Lie down. Rest here. Don’t move. Stay still.” It is in these moments that I cling onto the mantra: there is no way out but through.

Through the experience of loss, I have been given the gift of seeing the people and world around me, with new lens. I have experienced the incredible kindness, love and compassion of those around me: my friends, family, work colleagues and community. I have realized that I am not alone. People want to help. They walk the path alongside of me. They will hold me up, when I cannot walk by myself. My biggest challenge is to accept this help and to receive this love: something that is difficult to do when you are used to giving it all away.

I have learned that when a heart breaks, it not only cracks open, it expands. Grief reveals the depth of sadness and it reveals the breadth of love. It will show you the sphere of life, if you let it: birth. death. love. loss. light. dark. All of it interconnected sides of one perfect whole.

Someone once told me: “You cannot selectively numb yourself. When you numb pain you numb joy.” This is so true. I have learned that it is essential to allow space for sadness, grief and anger to come through. It is not only key to healing; it will give you a deeper appreciation of joy and love. I now understand that, despite my deepest fear, allowing these emotions to just be will not swallow me. Feeling these emotions deeply will not cause lasting harm. They will come and then they will go. It is all temporal and transitory. Less resistance equals less suffering.

In and amongst all of the changes in my life, I have gained clarity on what I deeply care about: the things that creates inner peace; the actions that offers me joy. I have defined where my boundaries start and where they end; and the more that I clearly understand these things, the brighter my inner fire burns. The easier it is to stay rooted yet pliable while the ground around me shakes.

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Maggie Mae

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My beautiful friend, Maggie Mae, died on Thursday. She was a thirty pound, liver and white Brittany spaniel. I called her my “fur baby”; and she would have celebrated her thirteenth birthday on January 1st, 2017.

This little soul arrived in my life not long after I was first married: full of dreams, playing house, and feathering my nest. When that soft little puppy bounded into our home, I had my first taste of sleepless nights, random peeing and general loss of personal freedom. I also experienced a new kind of endless devotion, love and joy: all wrapped in one wiggling package. All of this genuinely helped to prepare me for the arrival of my “human baby” seven years later.

Maggie loved to go on adventure walks with me, until this August, when her little body could no longer carry her up the mountain. Her nose was amazing and she experienced the world through her incredible sense of smell. She was fascinated with birds and she loved to swim: especially in the lake and ocean. I often thought she was going to drown, as she relentlessly chased after a duck or a seagull. She considered herself to be an adept fisher-woman, spending hours pacing the water’s edge, certain she was about to catch the big one.

She welcomed me every day with a happy squeak, a smile and a vibrating tail. Smile! Who knew a dog could smile? I didn’t – until Maggie. Her right lip would lift up, exposing a lopsided toothy grin. It was an expression of pure joy and it was beautiful.

Maggie followed close beside me throughout the house as I folded laundry, tidied toys, and loaded the dishwasher. She stuck close to my heels, tags jingling, always ready to help clean up fallen crusts or crumbs. And when we finished our evening chores, she would happily put herself to bed: curling up into a warm ball close against my legs.

Maggie comforted me when I cried. She never let me down and she was the most loyal friend that I have ever had.  She loved me unconditionally, as I did her. I will deeply miss her and she will always live on in my heart.