We are bodies, skin and bones
We’re all the love we’ve ever known
—Singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer, “Three Feet or So”
Hello Friends! It’s Tuesday and time to exercise our gratitude muscles to remind ourselves that there is light and love in the world, no matter how difficult the times. This week as I held the idea of gratitude in my mind, what kept coming up was grief, surely an odd thing to be grateful for.
Yet I am, and here’s why: Because grief is about love. As I wrote in Bless the Birds: Living With Love in a Time of Dying,
Grief is in part the measure of our love. The greater the love, the stronger and longer our journey with grief.
Grief is on my mind today because my mother died twelve years ago this week.
Mom, who had been fading since her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s the previous fall, slipped away quietly just before dawn on a brutally cold February morning, as snowflakes trickled from a gray sky. She was my champion, my best editor (whether or not I wanted her edits!), my guide in all things nature and the outdoors, and above all, the one who taught me to love unconditionally.
She had kept herself going for three decades—bright, smiling, loving—despite a terribly debilitating case of rheumatoid arthritis that twisted her joints into painful knots and shrank her frame and muscles until she lost four inches in height and 40 pounds in weight (and she was never large to begin with).
But Alzheimer’s sapped her will to live—she was proud of her intellect—so as Richard, my husband, was on the upswing in his journey with brain cancer, Mom shut down.
And I was pulled between meeting Richard’s needs and managing Mom’s hospice care while tending Dad, who couldn’t see her decline. Those months were a blur of exhaustion, grief and frustration.
On the February morning when she moved on to whatever is next, I sat with Mom’s body while I waited for her hospice nurse to arrive:
I thought about her life: The wavy-haired, blue-eyed college student who met Dad at the University of California, a six-block walk from her childhood home, and made him wait until she graduated to get married. Who earned a master’s degree in library science—cum laude—despite being legally blind. Mom, whose smile lit up a room; who prized birdsong, wildflowers, and mountain hikes as much as chocolate. Who had fought letting go and then found the grace to lead the way on her final trail.
—from Bless the Birds: Living With Love in Time of Dying
Mom died two months to the day before her 80th birthday. I was, honestly, relieved that she left us so peacefully.
That relief did not mean I didn’t and don’t grieve the loss of Mom from my everyday life. I carry her spirit with me in this life, talking with her at odd times. Which is part of living with grief, that trickster who pops up when we least expect. I am grateful for the grief, because it reminds me of her love for me, and mine for her.
We all deal with grief at various points in our lives. As a resource for your own journeys, I want to introduce you to an amazing podcast, Breathing Wind with Naila Francis and Sarah Davis. Naila and Sarah describe Breathing Wind as “a hug in podcast form” and it is, as well as being a series of inspiring conversations on all aspects of living with grief and loss.
I had the honor of talking with Naila and Sarah for an episode of Breathing Wind, and our conversation is still percolating in the back of my mind, inspiring new insights.
In a follow-up episode, Naila and Sarah spoke about practices inspired by our conversation, and I was especially struck by Naila’s idea of inviting her dad, who died on the island of Saint Lucia, on walks with her around her home in Philadelphia. Bringing his spirit into where she is now, and sharing her life with him. I think I’ll invite Mom to walk with me this afternoon.
Where is the grief in your life? Do you feel gratitude for its reminder of the love shared with those (or what) you have lost? If you’re so moved, hit the comment button below and share. If don’t prefer to share, that’s okay too.
I send blessings and a hug in newsletter form.
Grief slapped me upside the head in 2009 when the love of my life died. Grieving the death of my mom in 2014 and dad in 2018 has meant grief is no longer an unwelcome stranger knocking down my door. Grief takes so many forms and is a form of gratitude for what is gone and irreplaceable. It's a package deal: love and loss.
May your beautiful mother live on in you always. The day after my father died, I went on a spirit walk with him in a beautiful oak savanna. As we walked, I shared with him all I had learned about the living beings around us, and why I loved them. I wanted my Dad to know me on a spirit level, and bring him into my world in a way he had not been during life. I keep an acorn from that walk on my altar.