Small Epiphanies

Grieving is humbling. Every. Single. Time. It will bring the most evolved, capable humans to their knees. Loss is leveling, equalizing regardless of age, education, or intellect. 

I have been in its depths a number of times, at least a handful that were life altering, transformative, or transcendent. I know the maps. I still have faith in the process, but the territory is unknown, uncharted for each person, for each loss. The cognitive knowing, even the soul-knowing, does not make this work easier. 

The experience of grief and loss is unique in the ways it touches our early conditioning and life experience. In my work, I walk with my clients through the unfamiliar landscape a particular loss has opened. Together, we discover new patterns. We engage practices and ritual actions so that the process is participatory, a way to swim in the vast sea of sorrow and trauma. Presence is key.

Becoming enamored is my new word (as of yesterday) for the states of presence that transcend this horrific existence without Edmond. The ladybug enamored me, captivating me so fully that there was no before or after. 

Once a few years ago, I was enamored with a cicada. I spent most of the day with this brilliant bumbling creature, observing and photographing and taking video. It was the bliss of pure curiosity. Edmond allowed it all not interrupting me. Perhaps he was enamored with me or thought I was a little nutty. 

Writing is that way, too. When I am unfolding into the words that capture what I have or am experiencing, I am all in. It is my ritual act, my agency in this madness. I am safe within the walls of my own imagination, in the liminality of deep presence that is both focused and open. It is here in this in-between where I meet Myth. I meet God. Me and my ritual invite invite a third thing, the spirit that connects us all. In the quiet of the dark, before the sun comes up and the rest of the house is awake, I hear what is often drowned out by the post-dawn movement of the world all around. Small epiphanies begin to carry me through. 

I am subjective-objective observer within my day. In my mind, I compose what is happening, telling my story in real-time, tracking my way on this path, and leaving myself breadcrumbs in case I get too lost. 

So, when I woke up yesterday at 4am after about five hours of sleep, I began to write. I wrote until 7:15am when it was time to get William and Ellie up for school. I thought, because of the nearly meditative state from the quiet and the pre-dawn writing, that the day would be possible. 

However, as the two-week marker of Edmond’s death came into the light of the day, my possible became impossible. I managed to drop the kids at school before releasing the flood of tears and sobs, banging on my steering wheel with my hands. I wished big wishes. I wished he would be at home when I got there. I imagined him on the couch where I have been sleeping for the last fourteen days. I wished hard and loud. For most of the morning, I found myself screaming, “I want you to come home!”

Finding the patience and stamina to remain in a place longer than we believe possible to discover the foothold for the next iteration of ourselves is daunting. I have only been in this new land for a little over two weeks, and I am growing quite impatient. I am also discovering my anger, a feeling I have, over the last year, been making friends with instead of resisting. 

Maybe the puffy red-eye look will be a thing. Perhaps, it is the coolest fashion statement so far. Not only might we make crying in public normalized, we will have the scars to prove we did it. The grief is a tattoo upon our mind, soul, and body. Puffy lips, smooth foreheads—you are out. Puffy, tear-stained faces, at least in my small microcosm of the world, are coming into fashion.