Hello and Goodbye

The first time I truly grieved is when I lost my mother. I recognized and allowed that grief to wash over me, to sit with it. Still today, it brings a tightening of the muscles that allow the breath into my lungs, not like it once did, but as a reminder that we do not lose dear ones without them taking a piece of us with them as they go. As if our beloved takes a reminder or a token with them, to hold on to when they need verification that their time here was not a waste. A piece of our heart might bring them comfort in our separation.

I had experienced loss before that year, of course I had, but our family was not learned in the ways of feeling hard emotions. A person needs to be taught how to feel. I learned to react and harbor anger but the other things just sat there, ignored instead of processed and allowed. Anger and I have been well acquainted over the years but anger, and mere happiness, are hollow echoes in comparison to the complexities of real feeling like joy and pain, peace and sorrow and every feeling in between. 

I have grieved in the last year but I have also learned that grief can be layered with joy, gratitude, impatience, love, curiosity, victim hood, frustration, guilt, passion, creativity and certainly loneliness. What a gift. I don’t have to wallow in any one feeling. I get to experience a rich layering. Allowing them all and loving myself through each and every one of them.  

Many of my mornings are spent greeting the new day with about 188,000 soldiers (give or take a few). It is there I am learning how to feel and to accept the feelings even when they are hard. The Willamette National Cemetery has a fantastic view of both Mt St Helen’s, far into the distance on the left, and Mt Hood on the right. And somewhere in between, the sun rises each morning (whether I can see it or not), greeting me and my quiet companions. It’s comforting and quite lovely.