Saying 'thank you' for what you don’t want

For those new to this e-community, I offer my readers weekly snippets from my daily writing (tidied up a bit ;-) This week a special focus . . . .

The Call

When the call comes, a little chamber in the heart opens, not the atria or the ventricles. There are so many others. This one is called hope. Inside is a mossy stone. For so long you have carried it, unchanged, a burden and a possibility.

You might pray, or you might not. Either way, you reach in, grasp, hold the mossy stone, embrace its grey weight and the soft green-ness that you thought you’d abandoned long ago.

You might kiss it, a velvety coolness on your lips, or you might not. “Hello fear,” your body says, not in words but a rush, adrenaline, the blood and the brain sweetening. Grief is work and glucose, energy.

You might wail, or you might not. If you do, wail loudly. You’ve borne this stone silently, seemingly forever. If you don’t wail, place your hands on your chest, pull air, with its bits of starlight and earth, into that heart-space that’s open and empty now.

Wailing or not wailing, breathe and breathe and breathe. To keep on going is your job in this life.

Breath is a form of love, committing just to be in this moment then this one then this one, such a tiny vital promise. Let it fill you.

You might sense you are falling, or you might not.

You might discover you’re utterly lost, or you might not.

You might want to dwell in disbelief and regret, or you might not.

You might discover a wave of relief tinged with guilt, or you might not.

You might look out the window and only see what is dark, or you might not.

Either way, resist spending all your days looking through the lens of loss. Even the new moon knows how to sit in its own blackness sure the sun will find it.

You might not think to say, thank you. Say it anyway.

Thank you for all the years of possibility, and all the days humming, “let it be,” while learning to let go. Thank you for the call answering that old, hard question, How will this finally end?

Our Call

Last Thursday my husband got ‘the call’ that one of his sons, who’s struggled with addiction much of his life, is gone. Though painful news to receive and absorb, we’re okay.

If you have been living with the possibility of ‘the call,’ or have already received it, I’m sorry you have to be a member of this particular club.

How do we we navigate this loss? We’re starting with gratitude. First, in the call itself. After years of uncertainty, knowing is its own gift.

Second, there’s deep gratitude for the sweet young woman in our family who had to make the heart-wrenching call in the midst of the deepest loss she’s yet to experience. While I wish I could have spared her such a difficult rite of passage, I’m so proud of her.

One way you get through what you don’t want in life really is to say, thank you. Sometimes you need to step barefoot through glass to get to a garden full of scent and soft petals—so gotta thank each cut that moved you toward something beautiful, yes?

If nothing else, the awful reminds you that you are still here, living in the possibility of awesome that always exists in this world, in your being, even if it seems hard to believe when grieving.

Let’s be happy anyway

Whether you’re here in the US preparing for Thanksgiving, or elsewhere in the world heading into whatever ‘holiday season’ means for you, please take a pause to be inspired, complements of a special 9-minute-ish Ted Talk:

The Grieving Us e-Book is Free Again (for 5 days only)

If you haven’t gotten the Kindle version of Grieving Us: A Field Guide for Living With Loss Without Losing Yourself, or if you know someone who may benefit from it, now is the time to snag a FREE copy.

Grieving Us (the e-book) will be free, Thursday, November 24 through Monday, November 28, on Amazon. Click the image below or go here: https://www.amazon.com/Grieving-Us-Living-Without-Yourself-ebook/dp/B08Z477X9D

Much love and light to you. ♥️