Tag Archives: grief

The Closet of Unused Treasures

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Grief is a shapeshifter.

The last time i saw my mother alive was two years ago on Mother’s Day. She died the next day and i think she waited to die so that i wouldn‘t have this connection to Mother’s Day. It was a shock and created a sea change in my life that has been both the worst experience of my life, and has led me into a new sense of self.

I was tasked with the onoging responsibility of going through my mother’s lifetime of belongings, where she left a collection of Ariel-like interesting objects (both well-used and unused) as well as finding secret notes.

Through the process of purging my mother’s belongings I gleaned more awareness and new clarity, a sense of self that needed to transition. It is through this intentional grief work that I have come to see a more full sense of self, and one that will also not continue how my mother martyred herself, and ultimately lost her Self to others. It was only through this loss that I have embraced parts of me that have been hidden, and sitting dormant.

Cleaning out her closets has been a journey to find my full self. In purging and organizing, i have been faced with so more truths and discoveries i didn’t bargain for. Here are some of my biggest treasures.

Don’t Wait For Joy
One of the things i found was a purse my mom bought that was a fraternal twin to my own. I think we bought them together, on purpose. We were cute like that sometimes. Or at least that’s how i’m holding the story now. The big difference is what we did with the things we bought after. My purse is long-gone now; well-used and loved but gone. My mom’s was still sitting in her walk-in closet with the tags on it. It has been sitting there for at least 25 years. I don’t know if it was an item of pride for her or regret for buying it in the first place. I now have this bag and plan to give it a new life, similar to Amelie’s travelling gnome in that incredible movie.

Going through her things, i fell upon an unopened and hidden away chocolate bar. It was hidden in a box at the back of her closet, sitting among her important papers like her marriage certificate, receipts, and other seemingly important but forgotten documents. Ironically, i remember her telling me that she would hide some things from her husband, so that he wouldn’t pounce on the best things and not share. Funnily, i guess no one got to share this.

Finding it brought the floodgates back to my eyes, which has happened many times in the last year.

And yet, it was this specific chocolate bar, a reminder of my childhood and Eastern European roots, that really shifted me. She was saving this treat for herself, for a time that she could enjoy it. That time never came, and not because she died, but because she never seemed to find herself worthy of it. See, this bar of chocolate expired in 2014, and she died years later.

She never found the right time for one of the simplest pleasures in life: To eat the Chocolate.

Martyrdom is Patriarchal Mothering
Another big learning i am gleaning from these years without a mom is a commitment to not martyr myself as my mom did. I know i was one of the beneficiaries of that martyrdom and Mother Victim mentality, and yet it also created a wedge between us that was never repaired.

My mom regretted not living her life fully, not not sharing her feelings – that I heard about only all too well.

I am encouraging myself now to not wait for my own pleasure, and it’s a way that I am embodying my own manifesto of life – to not become a version of myself that first offers the best to others.

As a mother myself, this was a jarring realization for me. It showed me just how much my mother martyred herself, and learned to internalize a patriarchal way of mothering – putting her own needs and joy at the bottom of the priority list. This is not the legacy I want to carry for her, because she was so much more than this, and yet it took her death for me to see that. In her death, I want to honour her full life, and not just from my viewpoint as her daughter.

My mom was the first to tell, on repeat, what she sacrificed in order for my sister and i to have a better life than her. As a parent myself now, i can look back at those years with reverence to her and also a commitment to not lose myself to my roles as a mother, therapist, and partner. I know see that the only person whose life i am beholden to is my own, and i don’t want to wait to have the chocolate, or use the fun purse.

I am Her Legacy
My mom intentionally left hidden treasures for my sister and i. She hid some cash in the pocket of a house coat, knowing full well her husband (my dad) would never look there, nor do the work to clear out her things. She knew it would us who found it, and maybe the only money we would get. The things she left behind is not her legacy. The cottage and her belongings are just mere artefacts of her life.

What is her legacy or teaching is to embrace life as she only dreamed of. To live a slow and beautiful life.

These days, I honour my Mom in ome of the practices i first learned from her, whether it’s being a Herb Witch or antiquing. In the words of Marissa Renee Lee in her beautiful book Grief is Love she shares that “in order for you to become someone’s legacy when they die, you are required to change. Your transformation is their legacy …. You are their legacy”… ”Legacy is based on the fact that there is someone you loved dearly and who loved you back, and that love now lives on through you. When we can bring their spirit, their essence, back to life we keep our people alive, letting them continue to live through us and those we love.”

Ancestral Roots
My mother immigrated to Canada in her 20’s, and she left behind her own mother and family. In fact, both of my parents had to establish themselves in a new country without roots of their own. As an immigrant whose country of origin was being torn apart, my mother struggled with finding her true sense of self – and this polarization impacted her ability to truly land in her body, life and own story. She faced her own rites of passage without an elder to guide her, and I now realize she did so alone. Through my own metamorphosis called perimenopause, i was met face to face with the revelation that i did not know my own mother’s experience with it. I am seeing in real time what it’s like to enter the rite of passage of perimenopause without my own mother as a guide in physical form.

As a teenager, one of the ways i rebelled against my parents was in the most child-of-immigrants way – i lost my Mother tongue language. Now, as an adult it is one of my deepest regrets. So when i found old traditional Serbian dancing shoes, dolls, and table clothes, i reclaimed them and brought them home. Recently, one of my commitments to my mom and heritage is to find my way back home to my ancestral language and lands.

Don’t Dance with Regret
Speaking of regrets, i do hold so much regret for the time that was taken from me. There is a difference between dwelling in feelings of regret versus acknowledging the regret so that it can be held, witnessed and then processed. I know i can’t get in a fancy DeLorean car and go back to the past so regret of what i know now but didn’t back then is not helpful. I am working on not letting the guilt creep in that reminds me i could have had more time with my mom when she was alive. The adult parts in me also grieve the relationship that couldn’t heal or evolve in time.

I often wonder where is the place for regret in the stages of grief? There is so much i regret with this loss:
*I regret not hugging her that last time
*The kids not getting that sleepover
*Not taking her shopping
*Not staying that last day
*Missing the chance to ask about the big stuff like perimenpause, her dreams
*Not getting the opportunity to tell her how much i loved her, my awe of what she could do for herself
*Village life and doing it all alone
*Learning too late about feminine archetypes and the gift of Elder Crone wisdom

Don’t Bypass the Grief Wave – Do the Grief Work
Becoming a mother we are surrounded by well-intentioned people trying to help. Losing your mother seems like a process we suffer through alone. Whatever our own relationship with our mothers, knowing this loss is different from other kinds means we need to have others resonate and connect with us. It is yet another club we join without ever wanting to, and at the same time it offers us more shared humanity than we ever thought we could.

Western society has become grief illiterate, as we become more individualistic and severed from our emotions and lineages. It was becoming a griever myself that showed me just how alone we are in this experience. I became my own companion when I realized that no one else could carry this pain for me, or with me. We all need to apprentice with Grief work means to find meaning in the loss – not of the loss of our beloved, but rather for what our life is now that they are gone. This is a task of mourning and we are not meant to do it alone, we in fact need community to witness it and hold us.

“Do not feel like you were betraying your person by experiencing joy” writes Marissa Renee Lee. Experiencing joy is one of the many ways you can continue to love them. Joy is a basic right. We grieve because the love isn’t what died.

Grief work is subversive cultural shadow work because it is committed to acknowledging death in an individual and collective way. Death is not the end. Rather, it serves as a powerful step for alchemical transformation. Perdita Finn explains this even more in her beautiful book, Take Back the Magic.

Nature shows us that life mirrors a spiral dance with the cycle of life from birth, death and a possible rebirth.

Share the Appreciation
It’s not lost on me that i found my parent’s marriage certificate months after my mom’s death. What was a surprise was what was in the random shoebox in the back of the closet with these important papers: 2 cards that i gave my mom when i was in my early 20’s. She kept them all this time, and kept them in this box. Why she did this will forever be a mystery for me. I like to think it’s because they were two rare cards of me telling her i was proud of her, and that i loved her, and that i was thankful of her.

This was a lesson in always taking time to show appreciate, gratitude and love towards the people who not only deserve it but also who you might take for granted. I know my mom loved me, and i accepted her love language. What i also know is that i learned too late in my own life to reciprocate it.

Rituals for Gates of Grief
The loss of an elder before she could be one and i could appreciate her is a Gate of Grief. Francis Weller talks about these gates in his transformative book The Wild Edge of Sorrow. It has taken me in my almost 50-year old experience to know that i don’t only want but i need an elder. It has been through my own experience with perimenopause that I am noticing how similar my life is to my mom’s and where I need to make sure my life is altogether my own. Further, as I become more versed and passionate about feminine archetypes, an additional sense of loss is not having a matriarch or crone in my life now, to be a guide and mentor. Right when i was realize that i not only wanted one, but needed a Wise Elder, my mom was taken from me.

This treasure chest of discoveries has been a rite of passage for me, as it provides support to this new sense of self. You could call it a ritual of sorts.

October is known as a grief month, where the veil is thin between our world and the departed. This is the time for ceremony and ritual that honours our dearly departed, both recently and not. Our overculture has forgotten the roots of Samhain (known now as Hallowe’en) and the sacredness of ritual that honours our dead ancestors. Of the the biggest treasures i have dug up with this loss is my devotion to sacred practices, soul retrieval work, and creating rituals in my everyday life.

Transformative is Not Inevitable
According to David Kessler, the stage of Finding Meaning after experiencing such an impactful loss offers healing benefits. That doesn’t mean this stage is automatic. My mom’s death became a catalyzing moment for me. Not just in the way you might think, but in a deeper sense of shaking my Self out of me. It allowed me to access a spiritual practice and my sense of Self came back to life. I took time to really think about how I wanted to honour her in her death. I packed a special kit of meaningful items for her to take with her on her next journey after life. This is something she did for me. And yet it was also a way for me to really Align with the witchy side of me. It also was the one way i could truly give back reciprocal care to her, and show her that her love language was heard. I think it was also a way for me to highlight that i understood something powerful – death is not the end.

I saw a quote by Kimberley Jones a few months ago. It inspired me to notice that my mom birthed me twice: on the day I was born from her body and the day she died, a new birth of Me happened. Her death lead to my own butterfly effect or catalyst to become more versed, literate and comfortable with death work.

It has been through this process of purging my mother’s belongings and embracing the loss of her that I was confronted by my own sense of self, and ultimately finding meaning in my own life. It has created a newfound commitment to not martyr herself as my mom did. It was only through the loss that I could embrace parts of me that have been hidden, and sitting dormant in my psyche for years. Finding these forgotten treasures served as a wake-up call – a pristine and never-used purse is a revealing awakening for me to not wait for life to happen, nor wait to enjoy life, but rather be present in it now.

Luckily, i found my mom’s treasures, similar to Ariel’s treasures in the Little Mermaid before i lost my own voice and Self.

My Lost Self

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“What must I give more death to today, in order to generate more life? What do I know should die, but am hesitant to allow to do so? What must die in me in order for me to love? What not-beauty do I fear? Of what use is the power of the not-beautiful to me today? What should die today? What should live? What life am I afraid to give birth to? If not now, when?” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

This is the ending and a new beginning: a death and new version of me. This is the end of my life with a mother of my own. This is me entering a new phase of life self-mothering myself more intentionally.

A Rite of Passage has three distinct stages – separation, transition and integration. In the story of my loss, i went through the separation and then a transition time. Now, i am in a new stage now as I integrate and incorporate the loss of my mom into my life. I think i didn’t experience what others have access to, namely because my mom didn’t want a funeral. This rite of passage wasn’t marked and it wasn’t witnessed in the way that needs to be. These markings are for the grievers, as a path to help them be held in their grief, and to know it leads to something else. There needs to be another side to grief, a threshold as opposed a place that feels stuck in a web.

I’ve been finding my Lost Self again; This is some of the soul work i’ve been doing. It’s been an intentional practice of checking in with my soul self, and asking her what she needs. I think i lost her for a while, years ago. When Prairie posted a reel about this concept on Instagram, my soul jumped in excitement. It so desperately wanted me to notice this was what i too have been feeling.

We banish in ourselves what we want and then resent other people for doing just that. This resentment is connected to jealousy, not anger. It is a messy reminder of what we also have wanted for ourselves but are afraid to ask. What is it you want? I appreciate Brené Brown’s reframe on resentment: Instead of seeing resentment as a form of anger, it is more helpful and accurate to see it as something someone has they were wanting for ourself. And yet on the other side of it I think it’s also this balance of making sure I live my life more fully in a way that my mom never could.

When i became a mom, i went full steam ahead into that identity. I didn’t know another way to enter this new phase of life. I started to notice jealousy or even resentment towards other mom friends who had a more full life. It was only when i noticed this pattern come up that i realized it is because i wanted this for me as well. It’s been a journey back to me and all of me these last few years. It’s been an intentional practice of soul work, where i’m re-connecting with the various aspects of what makes us whole as humans. For many of us, it is our soul self that has been lost, or kept in the shadows. If this concept resonates with you, read this article to get a better sense of how to practice it for you.

One way i did this soul work was to sign up for events that speak to my soul. This helps me do the work deliberately, as an apprentice to it (a term i learned from Francis Weller). For instance, i recently attended a day workshop, a retreat for myself. It was absolutely the treat and reset I needed. With the name of it actually being TEND, I knew that I was in the right place. I joined a few other women who also can relate to this feeling of caring for so many others, that we also need to receive this tender, loving care. There was also a photo session experience, where i was able to fully embody parts of myself that i have lost, that have become lost along the way. It’s been a cathartic practise to sit with the photos, and see my FULL self reflected in them.

Another way to dive into finding myself again is to reflect on where my heart has taken me. Jessie Harrold shared her concept of “Rites of the Heart” again recently. While the term is not new, when i saw it on her instagram page last week, it really resonated with me. These are the (not so) little things we do for ourselves that are on our own, in private but are just a meaningful. It can be quitting a job and starting a private practice, it can be starting a garden in your new home, or deciding to embrace your new sense of style. They are the change of heart that comes with deepening into our soul’s calling. This shift then trickles down into our everyday life: I honour them with rituals like like a candle when i take a bath, or play a special song when i cook, make a cup of a special tea when i am feeling a need for a hug. I love this as it makes sacred the small things we do to give our soul vitamins, by making them rituals and intentions, instead of things we start to take for granted.

I have been really coming into my own with my sense of style. I have embraced (literally) the boho feminine goddess that has always been in me. This lost self is finally free and so happy to be. And, she’s been seen in the best possible ways. Last week, a friendly stranger complimented my outfit and shared she’s been an admirer of my style for some time. Not only was i touched, especially when she said she sees me and notices me – i am also now noticing that she voiced something i was missing with the loss of my mom: the admiration, the noticing of details, being a witness to how i adorn myself.

I don’t want to lose that. This doesn’t have to be a lost self.

I can incorporate (see what i did there???) ways to feel connected to my mom in my life now.

I have a mom still – her teachings and stories are within me. What i don’t have now is the active involvement, guidance and love from her moving forward. And i have so many questions for her that i didn’t get to ask – like how was menopause for her, or what are my great-grandmother’s names? And i wont’ be able to get her appreciation of my outfit, or share pride in our knitting. I won’t get to say i’m sorry to her when i’ll be in the throws of raising teens.

Ugh – i’m not sure how to be a mom without a mom; a mom to teens without my mom.

I have been reading a lot about this transition. Books are a way that i find anchor in a messy storm of life. They help me know i am not alone, and also act as a guide. One book that i just finished ways Rachel Macy Stafford’s latest gift Soul Shift: The Weary Human’s Guide to Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming your Path to Joy. In it, she breaks down into doable steps how to just do that – get unstuck and find your path to joy. I appreciate it has a step-by-step guide like a map. And yes, it includes the necessary involvement of soul work. THIS article does a great job in unpacking the book.

I also have been reading Women who Run with the Wolves for the third time. It’s my bible, really and truly. I read it every Sunday evening, and especially when i take a ritual bath. It’s the first time since becoming a mother, and also in this transition phase I’m in. One thing that’s been amazing isn’t that I’ve been really resonated with this book because I have, but actually the things that I underlined over 25 years ago that are still resonating now. And when i read it now, i have both the capacity and place in my life to make sense of the words and guidance the book shares.

Another lost self of mine is one that chooses pleasure and treating myself to things that i enjoy. My mom didn’t always model that. Recently, I saw a woman going to a movie. It looked like she was there by herself and yet she was there to enjoy a movie. This is something my mom never did. Outings were not something she prioritized, whether it’s watching movies or going out to restaurants on a regular basis, or having date night with her husband. She claimed it was because she didn’t need to or want to, but i never truly believed that. Mind you, she did other things that were more home-based like painting, reading, and watching shows. And yet I’m not sure if I’m seeing her through the lens of my life (where I feel like that is lonely) when in fact, maybe it’s exactly what she wanted, and she’s a homebody or introvert. I will never get to know this now.

A part of me wants to create a version that helps me feel better towards the life she had. And yet another part feels more sure that my mom was a product of patriarchal motherhood that idealizes martyrdom. She didn’t know how to live her own life without being on the periphery of her family’s. She didn’t know how to do it because most moms didn’t back then. And if they did have their own life, they were shamed and judged for it; or worse, banished by the other moms who couldn’t fathom that for themselves.

If you are feeling lost, you are not alone. Life is full of transition, curve balls, and changes of the heart. Each need to go through a process in order to be integrated into our life. That can be after a break-up, adapting to life again after the pandemic, or maybe you are in a messy change of heart with your career path. If any of these is the case, start with where you are at – find your presence in the here and now moment. Orient to your surroundings, ground into your body, and from this place ask yourself these questions: 1) What is your want right now? 2) What did your 8-year old self dream for you? 3) What makes your mind body soul smile and relax? These prompts may be just the right dose of inspiration. If not, maybe one of these articles can serve as a starting point.
* How to Find Yourself Again
* 7 Tips to Help Find You When You’re Feeling Lost
* My Dream for Women

“[T]o be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves. It is a tormenting tension and it must be borne, but the choice is clear.” ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Gates of Grief Work

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Last fall, l I devoured the show From Scratch. It was supposed to be eye candy, and a guilty pleasure show to watch. Does this ever happen to you – when you want to read a book or watch a show to get an escape from life only to find that story exactly reflects what you’re wanting to run away from or need a break from? This happens to me a lot as a therapist, as a mom, a woman. There are times when I just want to watch a show and it ends up being about sexual violence or intimate partner violence, or something about postpartum psychosis. If you are new to my website, these are all things i support people to heal from as a therapist.

This happened also with the beautiful show From Scratch, which is based on a memoir. Spoiler alert: expect to cry and witness grieving in action as well as a helpful depiction of how people should plan for their inevitable end. The show did such a great job giving us more literacy when it comes to grief – planning for our end as well supporting others in theirs.

We can’t think our way through grief, we can only feel it. We feel it in our lungs, or in heartbreak. It feels like a messy ball of yarn that is messy, and full of knots. The only way to clean it up is to tend to it directly. It’s ever present with me when I’m going to bed. That seems to be the only time that I can sit with my mom‘s presence and not get interrupted by life. Sometimes I think I’m a glutton for punishment when I do this to myself. In fact, it’s my way of honouring my healing journey because I know that the grief work gets interrupted by life time.

Is it ironic, how honouring death gets interrupted by living in the present?

We have moved away from seeing grief as a linear step-by-step process. Instead, i love the visual reference of water and a Whirlpool of grief. Water is one of the 4 elements and it represents grief, flow, and change. As a knitter, i also love how pulling yarn also symbolizes for us a tender, messy, and at times hard process of grief work.

One thing I took from the show From Scratch and in my own learning about loss is that we need to have grief literacy and embrace the concept to “die wise”. This is the intentional practice or plan for it. We need to plan ahead and tell her loved ones how to create ceremony for it, talk about it.

To die wise is from the work of Stephen Jenkinson, and his book of the same name. I first learned of his work through Kimberly Ann Johnson when she invited him to her podcast. I introduced both of their work to my partner and we now gather together around grief work.

Stephen Jenkinson shares that unclaimed ancestors show up as ghosts, especially when there is no ritual for ancestors or ways to honour them. We need to honour endings. This is where ritual comes in. His work isn’t geared at grievers, but actually at the person dying. How do they want to be mourned, or laid to rest, for instance.

We can’t be afraid to talk about death. Our own or our loved one’s.

This is why i loved the series From Scratch. They intentionally talk about death. They plan for it. I won’t give any spoilers away and yet there is one scene at the end that will stay with me. The matriarch of the extended family has an outfit put aside for when she dies. This is what she wants to be buried in. She shows that to her daughter-in-law.

My mom did this for me. She had a note about her requests. She showed me where she put it. I always wanted to bypass the conversation, being so unready and unskilled in seeing the importance of these questions.

Grief is the price you pay for love. No matter the size or what others may deem as proportional. Martín Prechtel shares in his beautiful book The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise: “the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living….When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren.”

I recently took part in a 2-month long weekly grief group. It was important to me to be a participant, as a way to walk through a gate of grief. I am not on the other side of grief, but rather a more intentional apprentice of it now. That is the threshold i stepped through. The facilitator, Syanna Wand, has experienced loss herself and as a trained somatic trauma coach, i knew that a group called Held would be a great community for me.

I do a lot of holding – of my children, my partner, my clients, my community. It was so comforting to be held here weekly. To know i was a key member and not have to talk too much about it. My place of belonging was not questioned. The final session was the most impactful as we had an extended grief ritual.

The group was part-book club as each week we read parts of Francis Weller’s book: The Wild Edge of Sorrow. He does such a beautiful job breaking down various gates into grief. As not all grief is experienced with the death of a loved one, his book allows for an expansive way to bear witness to many gates.

Gates of Grief
1 All that we love we will lose
2 The places that did not receive love
3 The sorrows of the world
4 What we expected but did not receive
5 Ancestral grief

Other optional gates are Trauma; the harm I have caused to myself and others (from Sophy Banks) and Anticipatory grief – fear of what is to come (a concept of Sarah Pletts). You can read more about these gates HERE.

“Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force…. It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul.” ~ Francis Weller

Our last group meeting, Syanna led us through a grief ritual. It was a virtual group and we met on a Thursday evening. I embraced the ritual wholeheartedly. I cried through it. I wrapped myself up and blankets. I lit my candle and had my ceremony Florida water. Syanna guided us through writing as a way of honouring our journey. I wrote this poem that I share with you now:

Needing to be Held
Warm Belly
Soft heart
Tears flowing
Sadness throughout
Then a pause comes
It tethers me to now
I hear her urge me to live my life
It makes me miss her voice and all i couldn’t say
I miss her
I miss being mothered

One of the participants shared these powerful words and they really sat with me: “I want to be alive while i’m still living.” This is my mom’s legacy – to love and live my life. Because she couldn’t and only wanted that for me. One way i have found meaning in my life now is that i am more well-versed, prepared, and comfortable to talk about, feel fully, and sit with is grief. I an an apprentice to it, surely, and it’s a role i am surrendering myself into fully. This article is one psychotherapist’s personal account with the loss of her child, and how it shaped her life, and how her work has been transformed. She shares another gate into grief – attachment grief. She walks with people through their grief journey. I am so honoured to do the same.

I have learned a lot from this experience. I don’t always want to reckon with it. I don’t want to reconcile that i’m still not ready, to be here without her. I was just starting to embrace just how much i needed her all along. I am still looking for meaning and yet, i have also found what helps me hold my grief with love and care. I am not running from it. I am companioning myself through my own experience. I have learned to sit with the feeling that comes up, and give it love and care. At times, it is solitary work. At other times, it is quite lonely. It is never easy and yet it can be quite healing. I am coming up to a year since my mom died. As i get closer to the day, the month, i can’t claim to know how i will feel. What i do know, though is that i am resourced and more resilient. I am also soft and open.

The ache is always there as soon as i turn around. It’s like an old friend, a companion waiting in the sidelines. Fuck these sad songs that show up unannounced on radio, unwanted at the worst time. They unbound me, untether me. They also let me surrender to feeling. Of love.

How to Companion Someone who is Grieving

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Birth, life, death….the 3 inevitable stages of life and yet the dying part is kept in the shadows of our collective experience. While we know it’s coming, we are so afraid of dying – our own death and of loved ones. So many people don’t know what to do when someone they know loses someone. We are not sure what to do as we may be afraid that thinking about their beloved makes them sad. I can assure you, they are already sad – being alone in it is much worse.

Where are the casseroles that everyone gets in movies?

I think people are hoping that i have moved on and don’t need to check in. For the most part, i am moving on because i have to. But that doesn’t mean i don’t want people to ask me how i am. I can be okay and still sad. And my sadness is proportional to the new grief i am experiencing.

I’ve also noticed that people assume that since time has given space to the newness of the loss that they don’t have to ask me how i am. I still only just lost my mom. It’s still the only news that is consuming me. It doesn’t matter that i am a therapist and trained to support others with their grief. I am a human who has experiencing a significant, life-changing loss. I need care as well. We all do.

When i reflect on these last 3 months, i have noticed both what i needed and what i didn’t get. I can’t help but keep track of what disappointed me. I think that’s the learner in me, the human experience researcher. The biggest learning is that i want people to acknowledge the loss of my mom. The biggest hurt is when people (who definitely know) and have not said anything to me in person. Not saying anything hurts way more than just saying “how are you doing these days.”

Trust me on this one.

I first learned of the terms ‘companion’ and ‘holding space’ from Amy Wright Glenn, who credits Alan Wolfelt for this. I love how these terms really do capture what is needed when someone is grieving. With that in mind, here are some of my take-aways:

companion

1) Sit with Them as They Grieve
We are not meant to carry these feelings alone. We need to know that someone is holding us. Don’t be hesitant to reach out. People who are grieving don’t always want to do it alone. In fact, as grief is based on the loss of a relationship, it is relationships that help heal. This is what it means to ‘hold space’ and companion someone.

Ask them stories about their loved one; tell them stories about your own experience (of loss, or if you knew the person); help titrate the hard feelings with stories about everyday life. Be there with them as they cry.

There is no right way to grieve. Don’t assume they’re doing okay just because time has moved on or that they are presenting as okay. There can be a cognitive dissonance when it comes to being okay. Don’t ask “how are you,“ try instead with saying “I was thinking of you.”

Being able to laugh is as important as being able to cry.

Being able to talk about it is as important as taking a break from thinking about it.

Don’t try to keep joys apart from tragedy or pain. Let them co-exist and forge ahead with feelings of joy and heartache – choose the beauty over the rain. Their sadness is a testament that what they are grieving is important to them. This may be hard for you to relate to if you haven’t experienced this type of loss. Instead think of your own meaningful relationships, or the one that they have lost. This is a reflection of what was meaningful and special to them and it is not longer.

“The way i see it, if something makes you sad when it ends, it must have been pretty wonderful when it was happening.” William to Rebecca, This is Us

2) Hug and Hold Them
Hugs are a catalyst of helping people to release the feelings of sadness. They also help grievers feel less alone. They truly help people feel comforted.

Other things that are similar to hugs are flowers, books, playlists, ready-made food, cards, donations in their name, and send texts to check in.

Social support should include rest and comfort, a break from the grief so that we can titrate feelings.

“We are all just carrying each other home” Ram Das
Not saying anything at, especially the first time you see them after the loss, is definitely the WRONG thing to do

3) Companion Them
While the concepts of companioning someone and holding space for them are interconnected, the subtle shift is in the action. When we hold space, that means we are staying with them in their moment of sorrow; when we are companioning them, we are on the journey with them to heal and are more active in the path.

Martín Prechtel writes poignantly on grief work in his book from The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise:

“Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is, in itself, the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.”
Invite them to events and activities. Don’t take it personally if they say no. Keep inviting and offering. Help them to re-enter world. Give them time and help by reminding what they love to do and can do now.

Remember their loved one’s name and when they died. Dates like this really matter.

In my last journal article, i shared this: “we are not meant to grieve alone. We are grieving the loss of someone we loved. We grieve what matters so need community to companion us as community is what helps us heal.”

4) Check in Often
Don’t just check in once, do it repeatedly; Put together a meal train and have a team so you can take turns.

A lot of us may assume that there’s someone else who’s doing this for the person who’s grieving. In our society right now, chances are there isn’t that person or village. Don’t assume others are doing it already – assume that it’s helpful to reach out. Just show up.

5) Take Time to Learn about Death
Because it is an inevitable part of life, we need to better prepare for its end. Think about what you would need, when you are faced with a loss. One of the things that has touched me the most is when friends and acquaintances alike have reached out with a resource that helped them in their grief. If you are looking for helpful books and resources, here are a few:

*Being Here, Human; a program for grief literacy
*Motherless Daughters and Motherless Mothers by Hope Edelman
*Julia Samuel, Grief Works
*David Kessler Finding Meaning: The 6th Stage of Grief
*It’s Okay that You’re Not Okay – the title says it all!
Orphan Wisdom
Pema Chodron’s words have been an ever-present companion
*Amy Wright Glenn’s book Holding Space: On Loving, Dying and Letting Go as well as her work at The Institute of the Study of Birth Breath Death
*Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser

I am Now a Motherless Daughter: A Club i did not sign up for

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My mom died recently. It’s beyond words to have such a loss happen. While a part of me knew that it would come eventually, none of us were prepared for it to be so soon and so sudden.

Having my own personal experience with loss and the grief that is tethered to it has been an awakening. I don’t love all the new insights i have found and yet they have been transformative.

For instance, i see more clearly just how scared we are of death. It is not the death itself but how to hold the feelings that come with it. It reminds us that our own end is inevitable and that feelings that are messy and raw will be attached to it.

We are left alone to grieve. On the other side of life, we celebrate birth and rebirth – we have customs and rituals for rites of passage like the birth of a new being, graduation, getting a new job. In death, while we have rituals, they are still left to do in the shadows of the day. People may come to an event and then leave us alone in the aftermath.

They say grief is a type of trauma. While not all grief is trauma, all trauma has grief: Of what didn’t get to happen. Some grief is trauma because a person may die unexpectedly, in a painful way. Too quickly.

Like my mom.

We were just starting to see each other more, after 2 years of playing it safe for her. We were just starting to talk about sleepovers for the kids, and adventures to do together. I have been doing my own inner work and healing and was planning to reach out to know more about my ancestral line, my Family Tree and all the recipes and rituals of my heritage.

Those dreams are not dashed away with her ashes. There is so much regret there, in that grief and loss.

I have never lost someone close and important to me. When i was told my mom died unexpectedly, i was leaving to pick up my sister from the airport so that we could be with my mom. We were on our way to visit her together. I don’t think i will ever forget the scream that came out of my body when i was informed of her passing. I remember collapsing on the floor and my partner’s hesitant understanding of what i had just heard.

I went into auto-pilot and feel like it’s been that way since. As the eldest daughter, one who is trained to hold others’ grief and support them, it fell on me to do that for my family. No one stepped in to help guide us and hold space for us. No one offered companionship in what was needed to be done, or how to do it.

We had to learn each step on our own.


Ways to Care for Yourself after a Death
I don’t wish that for anyone. So, i wanted to share a few observations with you now, as a possible resource for when you lose someone. Because you will – death and loss are an inevitable experience for us all.

1) Get Help
We are still figuring out what help we need. But we need help to be fed and calls to make. We need help to distract us and to hold us when we cry. Ask a friend who you know has experienced a loss who may be able to help put you in the right path. Find a friend who will provide you the support you need.

Think about reaching out to a Grief Expert. That can be a Death Doula or companion, a grief therapist or group, a Wills lawyer, or even some of the many books out there. Like this one, I’m Dead, Now What. I’m also reading Finding Meaning, and am so grateful for the work of Amy Wright Glenn, who i have trained with several times.

I’ve been taking this training with Janina Fisher and am so grateful for its timing. It’s serving as a guide for me in a way that helps me make sense of things, when so much doesn’t right now.

We are not meant to grieve alone. We are grieving the loss of someone we lived. We grieve what matters so need community to companion us as community is what helps us heal.

2) Take Time to Honour Your Loved One
My family doesn’t have any rituals for death to honour, so my sister and i found ways to do it for ourselves. We created rituals that felt right and meaningful for us.

For instance, my sister and i carefully, lovingly, and thoughtfully put together what my mom would wear when she was cremated. We also put together a care package for her journey into after-life. She did this a lot for us, so it was fitting we would pay her back and honour her this way. We collected things that were meaningful and important for her – her reading glasses and a notebook for her thoughts and ideas, a favourite book, some yarn and knitting needles, letters from us and photos of us all. We also included some crystals and lavender to help her be cared for.

While this was a big emotional task for us, it was also so cathartic to honour her this way. It gave me a place to put my feelings, and to show her the love i was not always able to display.

3) Keep Talking to Her and About Her
I think people are afraid to ask us how we are, not just because it can bring up our sad feelings, but also because it is a fear of needing to hold us in them. And yet, it is so helpful to have a space to unpack our thoughts. That is what Holding Space is – and not everyone can do it. I want people to ask me about her. I want to talk about her, even if it makes me sad. It reminds me that even though she is gone, my thoughts and memories of her are still ever present.

That’s why i’ve come to chat with her. A give her a simple hello, or “Good morning” Mom.” Ironically, i know she wanted that more in life, so i guess i am trying to make up for that now. It helps to hold my grief in a more softer way. Seeing things that remind me of her are quite hard and yet also wonderful, as they keep me tied to her.

4) Take time for Pleasure
This may feel selfish or counter what we are told about grief. As we know that grief is tied to trauma and our nervous system, it is so important to titrate the hard feelings and stay in your Window of Tolerance. That’s why i kept my special date with my partner. I wanted to have a place to soften, and stay present in the here and now. That’s why the fresh flowers we get in ritual are so healing. They may forever be connected to the loss (i’m afraid of seeing peonies next year) and they help us see something beautiful right here right now.

So, make sure to take time to laugh a little, indulge in a gift for yourself, savour a glass of wine or chunk of chocolate. That is doing your body and healing process a favour, i promise.

5) Hold your Feelings

Just because you’re sensitive that doesn’t mean you’re not strong

The difference between holding your feelings versus holding in your feelings is where the healing starts or stops. When we keep them in, we start to feel more sorrow and suffering. That dance of feelings keeps us tethered to the loss in a way that does not honour our own place in the world. We grief what we loved. So we need to come back to feeling what was loved. It does not serve us to keep them in – we need to let ALL our feelings be felt and seen. This is the hardest part of grief – we don’t know how to hold some of these harder emotions. One place i start is to name them and see what my body needs in relation to the feeling. If i’m sad, i let the tears out. If i’m angry, i scream or dance really fast. If I’m lonely, i reach out to a friend.

If any of these tips is hard for you to put into practice, that is the place to start. I think it serves us to start to prepare for loss long before it shows up at our door. My own inner work was not enough – i had just started to tell people about my mom’s health and my worry of losing her. I wish i added the parts of what i need to care for me.

Another way that i hold my feelings is by writing. As a Narrative Therapist, i treasure this part of me. Here is what i wrote to my mom and for her when i said goodbye.

Motherless Mother: In My Own Words
My mom was so much more than my mom. And yet I think her role and identity as Mom is what shaped her life.

Her new role of grandmother was probably one of her favourite parts of who she was. And she was more than a grandmother.

She was a chemist and knew so much about herbs, plants and the science behind them as healers. Her thumbs were the greenest I’ve seen.

She’s creative – she could knit anything and had such a beautiful eye for detail in her paintings.

My mom has such a gentle soul and yet such a fierce spirit. She’s been through more than anyone needs to be in a lifetime. And yet she also fought for what she wanted. She chose to go through those adventures with an open heart.

My mom was more than just my mom and yet she’ll always be my mom. I’m so grateful for her guidance and love. I’m the mom I am because of her.

She gave her all to us so that we could live our best life. She martyred herself in how much she devoted her life to her family.

While I’m still in disbelief that she is gone, I know in my bones that she wanted to let go before she become a bother. Even in her last days, I think she was thinking of us. I also love that this was her last bit of control, choosing death over a long painful last chapter.

The woman who died was not my mom
She was a woman who needed peace in her body
My mother was magic:
She was a beautiful soul
She was complicated and strong
Brave and vulnerable
Creative and a collector
Gentle and fierce
And under it all, it was all love

I will miss my mom when
I see hummingbirds
I hear rain hit the glass windows at the cottage
I need a hug
I eat Burek and crave Ijvar and poppyseed strudel
I reach for a tissue or hard candy
I lean in to smell my peonies

I will miss her when
I put my hand out of the car and feel the breeze
i see catch the rainbows in the sky or when they dance on the floor
i am curling up with a good book
i need guidance with how to mother my children
i am planting in the garden
i am knitting
I want to tell her about something i’m proud of at work
i set the table for our gatherings

“There is a wild woman under our skin who wants nothing more than to dance until her feet are sore, sing her beautiful grief into the rafters, and offer the bottomless cup of her creativity as a way of life. And if you are able to sing from the very wound that you’ve worked so hard to hide, not only will it give meaning to your own story, but it becomes a corroborative voice for others with a similar wounding.” Toko-pa Turner

My mom is now with the wild women, the wise women that guide us. May she rest now and be my wise woman from beyond.

Thanks Mom for your love and care, your commitment and the foundation that you created for us. You are now a child of the universe and i will forever seek your guidance.