Coping with my grief over my grandmother's death has come at an interesting time in this blog. The brain rewiring process I am currently engaging in was feeling very helpful and effective in my day-to-day life (see
Day 6: Early Results) but I didn't know how I would feel about it at such a challenging time. I didn't know if I would be able to keep up any of my self-care practice, any of my mindfulness practice, or this blog during this time. And yet, I find myself especially committed to this process right now. Checking in with myself, taking time to get quiet and meditate, and creating new positive thoughts seems to be great medicine at the moment. As it turns out, the emotional strain of this experience is actually accentuating the work I have been doing to rewire my brain. Although I am still struggling in some ways to connect with my family as we each experience our grief in our own ways, I am able to stay present rather than running away from the intensity of my sadness as much as I normally would. It is certainly not a 180 degree change, but there is a noticeable shift in my willingness to acknowledge and express my emotions during this time. The hardest part is finding any time or place to be quiet and alone, but I am managing to find small moments here and there. I am curious to see how this process will continue to affect me as the grief settles in a little more and feels less surreal; as her death feels more final, and the full weight of this loss becomes comprehensible to me. At the moment I am still in a bit of shock, not because it was a suprise (she was 92 after all) but because I simply wish it were not true.
Grandma Lilo's death was the Big Life Event that blew me open for grieving, even more so than my first divorce, which also dissolved me in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteThese days, I think of grieving as one of my Sacred Callings in this lifetime, to serve as a witness to this Collapse. And this moment was the beginning of my stepping into that calling.
As we learn from Martín Prechtel, Grief is the other side of Praise. You cannot have one without the other. As we show up to grieve the loss of ecological and cultural diversity, along with a seemingly infinite list of historical and present-day horrors, we are simultaneously worshiping the Sacredness of Life itself, by grieving her dying. And in this same way, grieving Grandma Lilo's death was how I honored the Sacredness of her Life.
I'm so grateful I got to have this experience. The biggest portal to being with the grief was 6 months later, when I spent 3 weeks with my mother staying in my Grandma's apartment and managing her estate. Grandma Lilo became a close ancestor through that 3-week communion. I also was so raw in the pain of familial patterns with my mom. In that 3 weeks I also made a life decision that profoundly altered the course of my life, guided by my Grandmother's wisdom from the other side. It's cool to have a 10 year perspective on all of this, and see what unfolded from this raw place of the moment of her death. I'm grateful I "happened" to be doing this blog project during her death time!