In Loving Memory
Reflecting on Love, Loss, and Legacy
I found I couldn’t write during the Summer months. My energy was poured into many different projects including reflecting on love and loss and legacy in preparation for our upcoming Sacred Grief Retreat.
Today, as we approach both the third anniversary of her death and her birthday, I feel drawn to share with you a short reflection that I wrote when my partner’s mother died.
I haven’t shared it publicly before, but through the process of co-creating the Sacred Grief Retreat, I remembered it and for some reason it feels right to share the words now.
Please know that I have left it as I originally wrote it in 2020; at the time I simply titled it “Death”.
She was the mother of the man that I love; the man who is the father of my child.
She birthed him into this world, nourished him, took care of him.
She helped him to become the man that loves me with all his heart, the man who is an incredibly loving, patient and engaged father.
For that I loved her.
I loved her because she was my son's grandmother and he loved her.
I feel deeply her sadness, distress and confusion at being locked away for the last 4-months without seeing those that she loved.
I feel a devastating shock that without love and tenderness and familiarity her healthy body declined so rapidly to catch up with her mind.
I feel immense gratitude that her son, the man I love with all my heart, was allowed to visit her the day before she transitioned from here.
She was the mother to three sons, a sister to three brothers, a wife to one man, a mother-in-law to two women, the grandmother to five children and a friend to many.
And of course, she was so much more than the roles she has played.
I hold the unease that without visits from those who loved her and whom she loved, she relinquished her place in this world prematurely.
I hold a grief that her care was given by unknown humans wrapped in PPE; that without the tenderness of touch, the comfort of a smile, the sound of a loving unmuffled voice, it was all too much to bear.
Yes, life is terminal and death is inevitable.
BUT. With a 52% rise in the death rate amongst dementia patients since the lock down began and an open letter to the government from care homes citing the absence of family visits as a cause, the grief is magnified.
There is an uncomfortable niggle that hers is one of many lives that have been silently sacrificed during this time.
And for them, our elders, there are no headlines or public honouring of their lives.
Their funerals and end of life ceremonies have taken place in private. Family and friends have been unable to gather together, to comfort each other and share the burden of loss and celebrate a life.
Yes, life is terminal and death is inevitable.
AND. Death changes everything.
The death of a parent is an initiation into the unknown.
Left behind is an imprint from which, day by day, we find our way.
In loving memory.
As I re-read my words, I can feel all the emotions and conflict and sadness that we experienced at the time.
One of the hardest parts was the inability to gather with friends and family to grieve and say farewell, and share stories and memories.
The funeral was limited to immediate family and social distancing was in place. It was an awkward and disconnected experience.
Each person's grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn't mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.
David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief
In a couple of weeks times I will be meeting Kathryn Sullivan in person for the first time as we co-facilitate The Sacred Grief Retreat. My heart and soul are deeply grateful for this opportunity to gather with others to share our grief, to be fully present with each other, to hold it all and tend to it with our presence.
We will be meeting not only the grief of losing someone or something we love, but what Francis Weller calls the Five Gates of Grief. As he says in his book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow:
By understanding the grief that is held at these other gates, we may be able to compassionately meet it and, in the right settings, allow the full expression of grief to be felt and honoured.
It is mine and Kathryn’s intention to create the “right setting” when we gather at Eden Rise in time for the Equinox.
Thank you so much for your presence here and for reading.
I welcome your thoughts, reflections and experiences in the comments, and if you’d like to explore joining us on retreat please do reach out.
With you in grief and in Circle in these wild times.
I felt your heart reading this Mitle. My mother has been diagnosed with dementia, I can’t imagine her being alone and untouched while she lives through this pain. I’m so sorry your family had to experience this. How much was lost during the lockdowns! We humans need each other so much.
Thank you for sharing this. It resonates with me deeply. My father passed in May 2020 from a long drawn out illness and though my immediate family were there with him, I was not. I was to grieve virtually only and join them in what was not actually a funeral, unless you can count the hour he was blessed by a priest just before his cremation.
It was probably at that moment when I finally appreciated my culture’s unique way of grieving... wherein there is a period of about 3-5 days of round-the-clock mourning at the funeral parlour when friends and loved ones will come and go and share stories, which will culminate in the final day when the departed will finally be laid to rest.