Grief as a portal into the spiral.
I noticed people staring. I couldn't figure out why for a while. Then I remembered. Grief makes you closer to God. There's something holy about grief.
But I had been too caught up in the anxiety to notice that the hole in my heart had allowed the light to creep in. The light that had been surrounding me, holding me, the entire time.
Grief can hit you like a wave. All at once, making you double over, lose your footing, and not know whether you'll ever come up for air again. Other times it creeps in. You think you're in control — but then, you're waist deep and soggy.
The pain of watching Nonna get ill and deteriorate was not totally unexpected, but at the same time, you can never prepare yourself to see your loved ones decline.
I knew it was old age, and life in itself, doing its thing. Yet the pain of her losing her independence, and in her eyes — her dignity, broke my heart.
Watching my parents struggle, was another thing.
Understanding my own mortality, another.
So as the stress dissipated — something changed where I was allowed to watch the grief reveal, and the light emerge.
Suddenly I was upset about things I hadn't been upset with in a long while, my ex, my friendships, unsaid conversations. Boom. Now was the time to be angry, hurt, betrayed.
Grief rolled around like the waves; relentless, pounding, suffocating — no matter which way I moved.
So I stopped swimming. I stopped running.
I welcomed the grief. It had been a while.
Dear friend.
I am sorry I closed my door on you. I am sorry I forced you out of my house. I am sorry I pretended that the world was not on fire. That children were not being murdered across the globe. I am sorry I did not speak my truth, honour my heart, give more, take less and celebrate each. And. Every. Breath.
So here, come a while. I will clear everything off my schedule and make time to be with you. Like a best friend. A lover. A parent. And a child. You are everything I have ever felt and resisted feeling all at once.
And down a spiral we go.
Where it melts from my grief into the grief of my blood. My bones. My cells. My DNA.
And suddenly we're in it. Everyone's hurling stuff at each other. We're being triggered in every direction. Wounds are activated.
And then there's the quiet. The pause. The compassion. The invitation. To lean a little deeper.
To enquire, to encourage, to facilitate.
And the work comes. It is not easy; in fact it is dark.
But on the cusp of that darkness is light.
And on the cusp of that pain is ecstasy.
And before you know it
You
Are
Down
Another
Spiral.
Then it's all our wounds. All our pain. All our light.
And it feels urgent, but in that urgency there is a space. A space to choose again — to healing. To choose life. That eventually leads to ecstasy.
And after a while.
Peace visits.
and
it's
all
okay.
Just okay?
And that's unknown.
Maybe even a little scary.
And that's okay too.
So we reset. Restart.
Knowing that this moment right here, is oh so different, to the last.