May and June’s blogs come together because it has been a strange space for me to be in these past couple of months. Grief has been very present in many guises, and coupled with some life shifts; has made for an emotional cocktail of seismic proportions. The fallout of our reluctance or failure to dance with what life is bringing for us inevitably leaves behind traces that always catch us up whether we like it or not. Grief however seems to be the unending porridge pot of a gift that unrelentingly offers its service for those who have lost loved ones; that has been my experience at least.
I have been caught up with or rather taken with the need to reflect, look back, maybe even analyse the past, mine and the collective I have shared with my Daddy and then my girls. It has felt like a natural process in helping me come to terms with the loss of my wonderful parent and a necessary step in trying to understand my place in the world without him now. Yes death is undoubtedly a fact of life and yet no matter how obvious it is, it has provided me with a catastrophic undoing because a person from my foundation was snatched away from me. He was taken without us being able to have a conversation about it, without being able to acknowledge that this was the end of the road for us together in an earthly connection, we didn’t get to say a mutual goodbye, and that still sometimes makes me really angry and irritated and deeply petulant. The idea, as I write about my grief and loss, feels like it may be a bore for me to be sharing again, and yet I keep needing to give myself the permission and space to be with it and bring it to the world over and over. I feel there is not nearly enough conversation around death, around the loss, the sorrow, the unending confusion and despair it presents. It is morbid, it is heavy, it is sombre and yet this is the reason that speaking about it is so needed because it shows us how lucky we are to still be here, to have the choices that we have everyday to find more life, to find more, joy, meaning and truth in every step and breath we are fortunate enough to be able to take. There are so many trite remarks around death - ‘live every moment as if it was your last’, being the one that sticks with me. I appreciate the sentiment and yet it is also so empty. What does that mean when none of us has any idea what our last moments will feel like, no one knows when our last breath will strike and even that very notion suggests the false belief that we have any type of control on how these things happen. That is the arrogance of our thinking minds. It’s not how it goes and often the things that honour us most and show how deeply we are living are so unglamourous and inconsequential which seems to go against the spirit of that type of rhetoric.
My contemplation has highlighted well at least in my experience the opposite of the hyperbole that losing someone becomes easier as time moves on. You somehow learn to live with it and the more time that passes you learn to live with the change. Again, I see the logic and I appreciate the sentiment, yet I wholeheartedly disagree. The fresh news and realisation of Daddy’s passing was like a shock to my system but also a genuine confuzzlement. Ok Dad, so you are gone, yes, on balance this seemed like it would happen, and I knew it was coming at some point, it was expected in a way. But the more days passed where I have had to re-remember that I can’t call your phone to check in with how you had slept, or if you needed anything. I haven’t been waking up to missed calls at silly o’clock in the morning where you had woken up and not realised the time so tried to call me. Not being able to ask your advice about whatever has been going on, not being able to play you the latest music that Nialah perfected. Coming to terms with the fact that this is forever now. As long as I live. Every single day that goes by is yet another day without your physical presence in it. Nothing will ever smell like you again because you took that with you, yes, I have to live with it and still find my way to finding joys in life and in my children, but it will never get easier. The more time passes I miss your bald head, calm presence, infinite love and mischievousness. I hate that you are not here.
These have been the internal lamentations that have occupied many of my waking and sleeping hours. An alternate reality of suspended existence, I have been floating in feeling for some semblance of realness. Life has also been happening alongside my courtship with grief, and I have been needing to be still and quiet so I can hear the other part of this piece that has profoundly unfolded for me. I know that at the same time I deeply feel the loss of Daddy’s earthly presence, I am blessed to connect with his energy and infinite spirit. This is a concept and truth that many people may not be acquainted with and yet may find levels of comfort in, or perhaps be freaked out by. I know the truth that there is much more to life than we can see touch and feel, and the energy of Daddy is always here surrounding and supporting us. For the first time the other day, he showed up in a session with a client. I was giving Reiki to my beautiful client in person and he came in as soon as I had started the session and sat down with her holding her hand to offer her support because he knew what she was going through. It was beautiful, I could see him so clearly, and feel the warmth and care of his presence and it was so good for me to have him there in the session, and feel him around afterwards. I know all this, I feel all this and I have these amazing energetic connections with Daddy, but my process is still processing. My humanness still needs to be acknowledged and addressed. I still get in my own way because my emotions need to be allowed and felt and processed properly in order to be able to be released and therefore quieted; all I can do is be where I am with it, day to day.
The other places that I had oscillated through in May included relinquishing a part of my life as a mother. Nialah, my baby, finished her formal secondary school education at the end of the month. The journey to the end of the road was an unusual and fractious one placed within the context of a slight global pandemic situation that altered every single part of life as we know it. The year 11s this year have been, through my observation, particularly hard hit. The elevated levels of uncertainty thrown their way with the will they won’t they sit exams saga right up until the wire on top of a very sketchy level of tuition for the majority of their year 10 amped on the pressure. It reminds me as I write of the fact that this year's year 11 had been through a similar debacle when in year 5 as they were a year away from their SATs the whole curriculum was changed and they were made to learn 4 years worth of content in 2 under unbelievable circumstances. It looks as though these gen zers are marked out for special things…….. Now even though the greatest impact of this Rite of Passage rightly belongs to Nialah, it also fundamentally changes my stage of life too. Her coming of age is a maturity of motherhood and shift of expectation and responsibility for me too. These are the things we sometimes forget when we are so focused on the practical aspects of hitting the deadlines. We forget the emotional fallout that may be there too. Have we been able to meet all the hopes we had in our roles as mothers to our younger children? Have we learned from the lessons and mistakes made along the way? Have we been kind and gentle with both ourselves and our children? And have we been able to accept the inevitable lessons that our young people have offered for us? These are some of the many reflections that Nialah’s transition began to awaken in me as I observed her with the deepest of pride and acknowledgement of who she had fashioned herself into despite the most testing of times. Having to negotiate a musical instrument exam, along with all her other incessant testing from February through until May whilst riding her own grief train was an humbling and inspirational scene to watch play out. Her next steps are also becoming my next reality and seeing the fact that a significant part of my parenting role was shifting and morphing on to something else. That needed a moment.
Exactly a week later and a big ol bolt of mother’s truth serum was forced down my throat when my eldest Nikkie turned 22, the age I was when I had her. A very, very, very odd time of looking at my life. Her whole lifetime which had coincided with the birth of mine as a mother was now just half of my life. What a total head screw, and a perfect second of recrimination of what could have been and ultimately hasn’t been right there on that birthday. Now it was just that, seconds worth of fleeting thoughts based on what my younger, fighting for respect young mother self would have thought can happen in 22 years, not having a clue what was around all the corners of twists and turns of life. The gung ho resoluteness that youth carries with it; the expectations of straight lines in the trajectory of life. The simplicity and straightforwardness that ignorance believes is possible before we embark on the journey. When we neglect to reflect we miss a lot of the juice that actually happened in place of the plans we made or the expectations we had. We miss the unique and unforeseen ways life forced us to adapt, the hidden potentials and talents we unwittingly tapped into because we had no other choice. We miss the sheer creativity that we unmask on a whim. And at the same time, our reflection allows us to find the holes in our thinking, the effect of our past traumas on the questionable and unsafe choices, the habitual shutting down and hiding that we favour over expansion and growth. It’s a real ride to submit a life audit. I have always favoured the art of reflection because of the hidden riches it reveals. This time around I went very deep and that needed some time to settle. The coincidence of all these hugely significant life events in the year when I lost my Daddy for me is no accident. This whole time has been an opportunity for me to be immersed in the unmistakable sauce of life, no distractions, no breaks, no opportunities to duck out. It is all here for me to feel, live, evaluate, understand and learn from. I have no doubt that despite the pain and challenges that have ensued, there is a pot of gold waiting for me at the end of this ride.