Enveloped in sadness. Dancing with joy.
Morning Pages
Turning Phrases
Every morning for literally decades, I have written three morning pages. I learned this habit from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. The morning pages are not a diary in that I can go back and read what happened in April of 1994, for example; they contain a regurgitation of whatever is in my mind at the time. They are a place to dump and, therefore, process thoughts, emotions, dreams, and events. My morning pages are illegible. Most of the time, I cannot even read what I have written immediately after I have written it.
Some of these morning journals might still be found, but I usually dispose of them as soon as the last page in the notebook is filled.
I have taken to writing certain phrases or sentences at the top of the page and then before pitching the journal, I make note of the random thoughts I chose to write at the top. This blog's title is one such phrase.
Coming Loss
Choosing focus
Mom would have turned 83 years old this month if she were still alive. This thought of a milestone never to be achieved by her gives me an opportunity to reflect on the words in the title.
We sometimes have the opportunity to see a loss coming. We experience sick parents, sick children, and sick pets knowing that in our worst living nightmares, they are not going to heal in this world we live in. This prescience can be a bane, and it can be a blessing. Moreover, we can choose on which of these we want to focus.
Our focus does not, however, belie the grief we experience. Our focus will make the difference in how we process that grief – before, during and after the loss.
Difficult Death
Practicing grief
At the stage where we recognize that loss is inevitable because life is slamming our faces in it, we start to grieve how life has changed. We no longer can _________. You fill in the blank for what is true for you.
For me, I could no longer expect home-cooked meals from my mom. For me, I could no longer see her without pain and therefore missed her joy for living and her sense of adventure. For me, I could no longer see my mom embrace all that life had to offer. Instead, I saw Mom contract her world into the walls of her house yet seeing and hearing people that were not present on this plane. I saw her writhe in pain and lash out at the very people she loved the most. I saw her lose the faith she had spent so much time building and sharing.
All of these moments – big and small – gave me an opportunity to practice my grief. I was saddened by her condition and by her experience. I cried for the loss of what was never to be to begin with along with the loss of things I once had that had now been “taken” from me. The “practicing” of my grief was actually harder for me than the “real” grief that occurred when my mom actually died. Because, in the end, she told me that dying was hard as she struggled to breathe and as she simultaneously struggled to let go. In one moment, my touch was a welcomed blessing, and in the very next, it was a blight on her being.
Mom's Glasses
Pouring love
The grief I experienced before she died allowed me to be grateful she was no longer struggling, allowed me to be thankful for all of the time I had with her, and allowed me to recognize the love I had for her and the love she poured into me. I sometimes question my own humanity though because the grief I have felt doesn’t seem as deeply full of mourning as I see in others. Am I, therefore, a shallow person? An unfeeling person? A selfish person? Have I really grieved at all if I don’t feel what others feel or see what others see in their grief? Have I failed my mother in my not grieving enough?
Or, did I grieve so much during practice that I figured out how to experience grief in a more productive way that allowed me to grieve inwardly without holding on to the loss of my mother?
Did I actually lose her even though she is not physically here with me? Are her heart-shaped glasses that travel with my camera and me beyond symbols of her love – are they also reminders that she did, indeed, pour her love into me and, therefore, I have not “lost” her at all, but integrated her into what physical life I have yet to live? Did my grief before her actual death bring me peace at the physical loss of her body?
Joyful Dance
Developing skills
The years and months before Mom’s death were difficult in so many ways that I am unable to articulate, yet they were opportunities that developed the skills I needed to survive those very experiences brought on during Mom’s last year in this realm. The grief before the loss allowed for another couple phrases that I wrote at the top of one of my morning pages:
Enveloped in grief. Dancing with joy.
Yours in grieving and dancing,
Angela Jane