Sometimes, there are no words. I’m going to try anyway, with grief.
2020 and 2021 have been years filled with so many challenges, changes, heartbreak and even blessings, and it’s been HARD for people, animals and the planet. Grief has been moving like a wave along with all of this. In June 2020, a few days after Father’s Day, I lost my father after caring for him in home hospice for 2 months. My mother had dementia, and we brought her to live with us, transplanted to Minnesota from sunny Arizonza where they lived for 30 years. I was her primary caregiver until she also passed into the realm of beauty on her 89th birthday, July 9th, 2021.
As we approach every holiday and change of season since then, I’ve realized that Grief WILL have her way with you – she comes when she does, and her intensity is like an ocean – one minute calm and inviting, even reflective, next minute stormy and full of tears, pain and the wailing echo of loss that cannot be reversed. As the beautiful song Golden Embers by Mandolin Orange goes, “Loss has no end; it binds to our connnections..” So what does grief want me to know? Grief wants me to acknowledge and honor what has been lost – to truly mourn in my own way,
I recognize that surrendering to what IS, and being present with whatever feelings come is the best path back to wholeness for me. Maybe this is a good path for all of us as we collectively go through massive changes together.
The wound and hole in my heart where my dad and mom used to be when they were alive, will always be tender and I don’t expect it to go away. What I hope for is that it will soften, and that tears and laughter become even more precious – gifts to strengthen the connection I have with them even when their bodies and physcial presence is gone.
Dad, I miss you. Mom, I miss you.
Thank you for everything, especially that very last hug. I love you, and always will.
The photo for this post was taken by my dad, Harry Wenger, First Light Photography, Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved.