The years pass. Fewer days hear her name said, either in my mind or in a whisper. The memory of her keeps me moving toward more: greatness, liberation, quiet, calmness, peace. I strive to fill my life finding ways to realize my potential. I strive to be better at being me.
She colors my existence. The shadows of my soul are molded in her likeness: round cheeked imperfect perfection. I can still see so much of her in perfect preservation. The purple hue of her nails and the bloodless abrasion on her skin from too long deprivation of air still paint images of flawless beauty in my head, forever mute.
Sometimes I see myself from above, out of body, my spirit untethered, collapsing before her cremation arrangement at the funeral before others arrived— too overcome by life to stand, my c-section scar not a week old and grief too heavy to hold. The memory is still too heavy for the tears I’ve long since stopped shedding and yet, there they are for the me that knelt on the floor. The tears I shed today are symbolic of grief for the grief that other me had to carry.
Her birthday is less than 6 days away. Her death day is less than 6 days away. 3280 days ago. Weirdly those are the days of my own birthday. Why have I come here on this day? I was compelled.
(Even stranger is the recognition now, a day after I wrote the original blog, that the previous paragraph above is wrong. I was wrong. I calculated 9 years ago, it was not 9. It was 11. It was actually 4,012 days ago today. 4/12. As in April of 2012. How have I lost 2 years? Or rather how has 2 years passed? But I alter words from history so I will allow my earlier self to continue. And I’ll make interjections via parentheses.)
A feeling that I should visit this place randomly occurred just moments ago, like a long forgotten memory that I suddenly recalled back into existence. I’m not sure why. But I’ve learned to follow my intuition since her death and so I’ve come. To listen to the dead. To hear the spirits in the stillness. To honor the grief that was. To honor the love for her that is.
A couple years ago, I finally set down the guilt. And I stepped toward forgiveness for all I felt I missed in grieving. Grief is difficult to walk through like dense fog, but it is malleable, amorphous, an ephemeral thing that ebbs and flows and finds its way into the cracks and explodes your world from the inside out. Then over time, over many explosions, like pottery you are able to put yourself back together with veins of gold, not the same, but not less either.
I am meant to grow, I know this. To grow so my heart can reach above the cloud of grief. So I can see from above and guide myself to accept that I have no control and to be okay with that. I’ve gotten better at this. (And yet sometimes I’m no better at all, I think. But…)
I HAVE grown. That seems counterintuitive since I am here at this blog of grief and loss. But it is also one of change and love and growth and power. There is power in forgiveness, and power in grief. Grief is, after all, all the love that has no place to go and so it turns in on itself and you are instead supposed to give that love to yourself. That is hard to learn. For me it took many years. These last 9 years I have learned to love myself much more.
I’ve embraced the dreams I’ve dreamt since I was a child. I have written a full-length novel. It is a story of loss and grief, and strength and love. A historical fantasy that is colored by so much truth. Maybe one day I’ll publish it. That is my loftiest goal. Maybe one day I should take these blogs and publish them, too.
Her life has brought me to other places too. Her death has also taught me to listen to my intuition fully. Her spirit has guided me to hear more from the other side. Her love has encouraged me to see more from the other side. But I no longer define myself by her death. I have learned the courage to step into my own power.
Many years ago a medium gave me a very specific and detailed message from her. I recall it vividly. She told me things only I knew; literally, not even my husband had known. It gave me an indescribable amount of peace. Ever since I’ve longed to give back to others similarly. I hope that my mediumship work will do that. It is one of the ways that I’ve embraced loving myself, a way of stepping into my power — finally accepting that the quirky aspects of me are actually the parts that are authentically me regardless of what others think— and they are awesome.
I am not the person I once was. I am more me now than I ever was. Her death and her life has changed me. I have gotten to a place where I feel I can finally see above the fog.
(The old me wouldn’t have forgiven myself for getting the date wrong. This me realizes that I’m tired. The kind of tired where I have a book in my hand one second and then no idea where I set it. Or where I take a wrong egg and crack it thinking it’s hard boiled and it spills over the table. Or where I grab my salad out of the fridge only to find at lunch time leftovers. Or where crawling out of bed for work is more like an MC Esher clock painting as I drip out of bed in a puddle in the floor.
Or maybe it’s the few days before her angelversary and somehow… I’m still searching for solace in spaces between the words on the page.)
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