Tag: love and loss

Change, choice, Healing, Love

Wanting To Go Backwards, Needing To Go Forwards

Family
Surrounded By Family

I learned something last week.  For the past nine months I’ve been trying to go backwards.

I’ve been trying to imagine my Dad back to life.

Impossible.  And I have caused myself all sorts of pain because of this desperate need to go backwards in my life and in my Dad’s life.

There are many things I can do backwards.  Spelling.  Counting.  Swimming.  Skating.  Skipping rope.  Dancing.  Walking and even kind-of-slow-running.  But I cannot get life to move backwards.  Not going to happen.

I need to grieve forwards.  Sounds funny, I know.  It actually makes me laugh when I say this to myself.  Laughter feels like grieving forwards.

Realizing what I’ve been doing makes a difference in how I feel.  Something has eased within me.  I’m not going forward, but at least the backward pull has stopped, and that is an improvement.

Yes, Dad, I was trying to head in the wrong direction, backwards.  A mistake made out of a long love, and an unwillingness to stop seeing you here in front of me.

Dad does not want me sad.  He loves me too much for that.  I can feel him gently putting his hands on my shoulders and turning me around, so now he stands behind me and my life stands before me.

I don’t want to do this.  I am crying, but I feel Dad behind me and there is strength in that feeling.  Love, and a kind of steadiness I had lost.  He has my back, and I can make the first tentative steps forward again.  He won’t let me fall.

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In this post:

The excellent, imaginative book I was reading last week, that sparked my aha, is Lost & Found by Brooke Davis, Penguin Canada Books, 2016.  I love the three main characters, a seven-year-old girl and two seniors who create themselves as family, take a road trip to find the girl’s mother (who has left her behind), and emphatically refuse to be anyone other than who they are.  I keep thinking about them.  I want them to be happy.  Thanks, Brooke, for writing this.    https://www.facebook.com/brookedavisauthor

Brooke also wrote an article, very much worth reading, about her experience of grieving.  A shortened version is included at the end of the book, and the full version is at www.textjournal.com.au/oct12/davis.htm

Change, choice, Love

Life Changes

familytiedtolife
Family (tied to life)

There is no easy way to say this.

My cousin is leaving this earth tomorrow afternoon.  It is her choice, after five years of dealing with a malignant brain tumor and standing up to every change it placed into her life.  Yesterday, she decided it is time to let go.  The biggest change of all.

Our families spent summers together, and the occasional Christmas.  We went swimming in the ocean and the lake.  We folded fleets of paper airplanes and flew them around the house.  We leaned against the railing of the second floor sundeck and spit watermelon seeds as far as we could send them.

I miss her already.

Life is all change.  The past year has shown me this in abundance.  It has also taught me it is possible to find my way through each shift.

Today I am doing things my cousin and I both loved.  Listening to music.  Playing with word puzzles.  Having time with family and friends.  Writing.

The small things in life walk me through life’s big changes.  The small things, and love.

Bon voyage, cousin, and much love.  I am glad we’ve been family.