One Year with Grief

It feels like this could be one sentence or an entire book. There is so much to say, and sometimes nothing at all.

I imagine this is going to be all over the place, and yet it will make perfect sense.

The things that you realize when someone dies, are profound. And as I say that, I know, that everyone's experience is very different.

But the things that I have realized are beyond profound. The love. The things I couldn't see. The ways that love was expressed and I just didn't know it.

The void. The finality.

The despair and the hope. The rawness.

The closest to God I have ever felt.

When my mom called me on the 7th and said, "he didn't make it" - my brain could not comprehend, and in that moment I thought - well put the Doc on the fucking phone and I'll talk him through CPR, what the fuck do you mean he didn't make it? Didn't make it where? What does that mean?

But all I could say was, "oh my god, I'm so sorry mom, oh my god, oh my god."

"Some idle Tuesday" -- now I know why that phrase in baz luhrman's speech always struck something in my core. Here we were.

I sat and sobbed for most of the day. It came in waves. And many times out loud I had to say, 'Gaylen is dead' - I needed it to register in my mind. He's dead. It's over.

The over-ness and the finality are something that a person can't wrap their mind around until it happens. And the massive empty feeling that accompanies it can make a person feel like they need to hang onto something or they might collapse.

I was in awe of how the world around me just kept moving. How mine was completely shattered and everything kept moving forward.

HUMBLED.

The next day on the plane ride to Florida, I cried every second of the flight. Never before so unable to make it stop. My forehead hurt.

I have never felt so raw and open.

A feeling that I am sure will come again on the other side of death, in birth -- if it is in the divine plan for me to be a Mother.

The rawness left me open to a new experience. I could feel him. I could feel God. A golden light that stood just a few feet behind me - with me. I was reminded, 'God does not keep us from the challenges, he walks through them with us'.

And there he was. His presence clearly stating, "I am here".

Emotions coming through I had never experienced.

Despair. The knowing that this will always be the truth moving forward. This cannot and will not change. There is nothing I can do. There is no prayer I can pray, no action I can take. This simply IS.

My mom reminded me that it is 'one day at a time' - something she has navigated so many times before -- losing her mother and father, 2 of her brothers, and several friends. She is no stranger to Grief.

And while I had lost people I deeply cared for, this was a new interaction with Grief.

A new relationship with Grief.

One that said, come sit with me Rachael - let us be with these big feelings, let us more through them together.

And when I resisted, Grief would simply take over and bring me to my knees - reminding me that it was the guide right now, that we were on Grief's timeline and it was an important one.

Make the time.

It is an honoring, not an inconvenience.

Talk to him. Tell Gaylen that you miss him. Tell him that you are sorry. He is here and he can hear you.

I still hesitated.

But when I did, I could hear him say, "Pelty, it's alright".

So many times this year I could hear him. He was there. He is here.

He is here now.

And he will always BE. His imprint is within me. In ways that I don't even realize.

When I know that, I wonder how I didn't notice…

How did I not notice how bright his smile was? How did I not notice ALL of the ways that he showed me love? How did I not notice how MUCH he loved me? Why oh WHY was that so hard to see until now?

I suppose that is just the way.

That is the pain, and the gift. All in one - isn't that right, Grief?

It took about 8 months to remember. 8 months before it wasn't every single day that I had to remember that he was gone. I guess that's the thing when someone dies suddenly? You forget. And then you have to remember.

It still happens a few times a week, but now it's just not every day. Now I remember.

When I really need him, I ask out loud, and usually the response is Dire Straits on the radio - I crank it up and laugh and cry.

You CAN hear me.

In this past year I realized that in my life, I have severely underestimated how a simple text or a hand on my back could ease this pain. I never knew that this kind of pain, or pain in general could be held by many, making it easier to bear.

The people in my SuNu community are obviously masters at this, but the way that it allowed me to move through so much of this Grief is one of the greatest blessings of all.

To look me in my eyes and ask how I am. To simply sit with me, hand on my back, saying nothing at all.

My God. I never knew.

Thank you, Grief, for showing me.

And the gift of knowing what I can offer those around me. Those who I know that are grieving. How something so simple can make all the difference.

Because there is really nothing you can do. Nothing they can do. Other than to be with you. To witness you in your pain and not try to change it. To even have the courage to ask in the first place.

Something I did not realize until now.

One thing, out of a million things that I didn't know. Didn't know and didn't think were possible. And to see how this loss has transformed me, my life, everything. With death there is rebirth. That is the way of things. It is always a cycle.

When we release, or something is released, it will always create space for something new. Often, things we never could imagine.

From one unimaginable thing to the next. Life and death. Death and rebirth.

I am in awe of it most of the time.

It begs the question, 'what really matters?'

And for me, nothing emphasized that question quite like this past year.

Gaylen, I miss you. And I know you miss us too.

I SEE you now. For ALL that you are. For ALL that you wanted us to see and feel. For the deep LOVE that you had for us. I am so grateful to know you and to be loved by you.