We all have an idea of what life should look like. We all have a plan for how things should go. And why wouldn’t we? We are creative beings and we put in a lot of hard work building our lives. From a very young age we begin to construct an outline of what will unfold before us on our paths. In my case, my plan included college, career, marriage, a home, children, and grandchildren.
So, what do we do with the excruciating loss of a loved one? Nowhere to be found in that beautiful picture I painted of my life was the sudden passing away of my son as the result of a car accident seven years ago, my youngest of four wonderful children. That carefully crafted image of what I was building my life to be was shattered. What I had envisioned for the future was no longer possible.
Richard Rohr, ecumenical teacher and author, says that two of the most powerfully transformative experiences in our lives are great love and great suffering. When I first read these words of his a few years back, they immediately resonated with me. From what I had experienced, this rang as truth.
Yet just today, listening to a podcast, I heard writer and speaker Paula D’Arcy tell about losing both her young child and her husband in an instant during a car accident when she was 27. She was also 3 months pregnant at the time. Incomprehensible. The world as she knew it had vanished. She explained that during the brutal pain of this loss, she felt the great love and great suffering that Rohr describes occur at the same time. She said that this is how it is with the grief we experience when a loved one dies. Our love and our suffering become one.
A new understanding reverberated in my heart when I heard this. Yes. Yes indeed. Through my experiences sitting with and hearing from hundreds of parents who have a child in spirit, as I watched their love for their child spill out through the tears running down their faces, I could see that the immense love they have for their children, as the unbearable suffering they felt were one and the same. The love and suffering were integrated. And, when I consider my own loss, the physical loss of Eric, I have come to understand that this suffering is absolutely transformational, for we will never be the same.
But what do we do with this transformation? It is natural to ask why - why did this happen? There will never be a satisfactory answer to that question. But maybe instead of asking “why,” we can ask “what.” If I will never be the same, what now? What do I do with these broken pieces of my dream? What do I do with this transformational shift?
This grief is precious. I recently had the honor of attending a play that centered around the theme of grief. In The Rhythm of Mourning, performed by Bethesda Repertory Theatre based in Los Angeles, we see the main character, The Woman, wrestle with all the parts of her psyche that run amok as she is consumed by grief after the death of her brother – Innocence, Anger, Bargaining, Denial, Hope, Depression, Anxiety, Shame, and The Void. The Woman faces each facet of her pain, converses with each, argues with each, and ultimately participates in a beautiful dance with each. And from that acknowledgement of each part of herself, comes healing. She says, “I cherish this sadness I have. This exquisite grief, it’s mine, and the most precious thing I posses.” She sees the treasure in her grief. She is transformed.
The journey is a mysterious one. There is no way to know what’s ahead. This movement through all the emotions of grief — it’s all part of the journey. There is no way to anticipate how this new road will manifest. In my experience, I surrendered. I allowed all of it to express and move through me. I couldn’t pretend the grief was not there. It was. It still is. And it does what it’s there to do, which is not obvious at first. It’s there to heal.
But only if you allow it, as impossible as that may seem. D’Arcy says, “The stumbling stone is the seed for growth. Rather than stay the same, allow yourself to grow.” It won’t happen by itself. You need to give yourself permission to do so, permission to grow and heal. When you are catapulted towards transformation, you have the opportunity to become more. Let it teach you.
Grief taught me to look around at others who have gone through this same loss. And when I did, I saw myself in others, and I saw them in me. We were connected by our pain, by this experience that is part of life. I saw that I was not alone. I saw the immense beauty in how someone else with a hole in her heart the size of her child could see me and reach a hand out to me to help lift me up. And then, when my legs felt a bit steadier, I was able to do the same for someone else. It’s the pebble tossed into the water that creates that amazing ripple effect. It is exquisite. And I allowed myself to be part of it.
I express this sentiment in my book A Bird Called Wisdom…
If this is what has happened
Then let me take it and run with it
Let me take all of it
And have it turn me into
The very best self
I can be
If somehow
I am to live this life
As a mother with one child
On the Other Side
Then rather than let it break me
Let it build me and expand me
Let it take the broken parts of me
And allow the light inside of me
My truest self
To shine through
Bright and bold
Let it teach me
All that I came here to learn
To honor my son
I will do this
To honor my mother and grandmother before me
Whose children also passed before them
I will do this
I will do this with my son on my left
My angels on my right
My ancestors behind me
Mother Earth below me
And God above me
Show me
Teach me
Guide me
Whatever your loss, may your pain transform you into the very best of you. May you find a way, deep inside of you, to step over bitterness and despair, and find the steady ground of hope, of love, and of connection with those on this same path. It is there for you, if you will allow it.
(Read more about my journey from grief to hope in my books Look Around and A Bird Called Wisdom.)
