LIVING WITHIN—COMING HOME

Standing at the precipice of my two worlds with Matty in Spirit 

Dearest Matty:

What is time in mourning and grieving? There is no measure as seconds fall into minutes, hours into days. Grief in the beginning, I possessed no sense of day or date, consumed by lament. Time became light or dark instead of days; morphing into wet & lush, warm & hopeful, cool & colorful replacing the seasons as they came and went. I’ve lived the weeks that have turned into months and collected the months that then defined a year, then another, and another, and another and here today, I find myself at five years. Five years and healing with grief redefined, unseen in 2015. Grief presented itself initially in dualities, ensuring that I felt the full range of emotions upsetting my sense of time and equilibrium. 

"When we hold the balance of the opposites, we embody our innate wholeness; our original, unique selves.”

(From Bringing the Dark Mother into the Light By Bethany Webster on Thursday February 23rd, 2017)

In my second year, I faced the finality of your passing. In my third, I made the choice of examining this thing called grief. First, I defined it . . . or tried to so that it made sense to me.

Grief’s first impression was dark, filled me with fear and tried desperately to cast a shadow over my love for you, tried in vain to silence my heart. I could feel the raw ball of pain that I was. It felt like imprisonment and all I wanted to do was crumble, get myself into a fetal position and cry and scream this horrible pain away. Grief arrives as does Mother Nature’s most devastating storms. It changes lives on a dime and leaves one in a state of unknowing until the storm lifts. I needed another plan. The power of love was drawing me to the fact that my daughter in law, your wife was feeling her ball of pain and in her crumble and fall, she needed help with her babies, your babies.

As I let grief wash over me through the years, I set an intention to let go of my fear and when I met grief eye to eye, I was introduced to a softening, a wisdom. I could see a beauty and found strength in her darkness. I acknowledged grief and took back my power. Grief no longer felt like an anchor that weighed me down and I extended an invitation that she become a permanent resident of my heart, opened and expanded to hold all of Grief; her darkness and light, joy and ache, chaos and comfort, hope and wisdom. An afterstorm does exist and I learned that my heart was knocking on soul’s door—a call unseen and unheard, yet strongly felt. In listening, my senses were sharpened. Hindsight taught me where there is love, there is grief and no need to run from, rather a need to run to—that's where the healing lives .

Today, grief redefined is this thing without an opposite, no antonyms needed. I’ve learned it consists of both outer and inner workings. It holds both constrictions and expansions and is a path to Wholeness. It’s a model of transformation—starts out one way, morphs into another yet creates space to hold all without an explanation needed. No explanation required because it grows and transforms in the heart and every experience is unique, expressed in feelings and not words. In the absence of words and language, metaphors and analogies become my descriptors of emotions and processing; feeling is my true teacher and lives within.

Year four pummeled me with questions born from a state of melancholia that begged for answers and you answered with this guidance:

“Keep going. I’m here. I will lead you to find your soul, your higher self. This is the you who is with me now. Then you can know we are together still . . . even between the signs”.

This year I’ve heard the whisperings of my soul.

“I am the one who is your Unseen, has observed the weight you carry, sees you feeling fragmented, sees the light through the darkness.

I need you to know we are ONE, you do not walk alone.

I want you to remember who you are—the voice of your soul.

I want you to BE.

The gift I bring to you is Love—the path to Divine Love, the ability to meld thoughts and feelings and see with your heart.”

My heart fills with tenderness and I ask: “Is there anything else you’d like to say to me today?”

Soul answers: “The path is always lit and yet remains unseen at times. In those times, a change in perception will yield a change in perspective.”

With gratitude and a feeling of being so well loved and cared for, I continue on my journey. The summer months bring many lessons, signs, synchronicities and validations. At four years and seven months, you present me with the theme of “letting go”.

The next group of moments, occurring within the time span of a week, hold great significance and insight delivered in moments of hindsight. I receive a book "Love You Forever" from a beautiful soul. She is a gift of Love, a woman I have been blessed to know and love. The tears begin to flow before I even finish reading her note. The book, a gift unrecognized and waiting to play out its role in my transformation.

I attend Jaelyn's acting debut in a summer camp theater production of The Wizard of Oz. She teaches, and I learn how to do the Munchkin Skip on the yellow brick road. How could I not as she is in character with the roles of intuition, heart, and courage leading the way. The loss of inhibitions feels wonderful! Moments that are the beginnings of transcendence— unrecognized and unwritten. 

Within a handful of days I am on Broadway in New York City sitting in on a matinee performance of Frozen; brought to my knees in tears Matthew by the second rendition of Let It Go. Elsa sings out to the Universe as she recognizes, becomes aware, has the experience of, a knowing and a belief that the thread connecting her sister Anna and herself is her true love . . .  unrecognized and unwritten until she is brought to her knees in pain. As our memories flashed through my heart, bringing me home, to myself, the tears were unearthing my inner peace, the constant feel of it waiting to rise after being so long buried since your physical passing along with self-love—recognized and ready to be re-written.

You brought me to a new beginning as I began to sense you, recognize you as one voice among many in spirit. Validations poured in and there were so many dots to connect. A random google search guided me to revisit Anne Marie Higgins’ book Dancing in Two Realms, filled with references to the Wizard of Oz, read in 2015 and forgotten until now.  A conversation with a friend nudged me to finish Henya Kagan’s Gili’s Book offering me a bereavement model that highlighted my own. This is more than integration. You are showing me there is no importance in time as I know it in this process of grief–integration–transcendence. 

How many times have I thought these summer shifts were ready to be shared in a new blog post waiting to be written? Finished, had come to an end? No, it was never about coming to an end, it was always about coming home to the human part of me that felt like it was coming out of hibernation and Home to the soul/spirit part of me I yearned to meet. You’d given me a flash of an illustration for this blog, the title Living Within—Coming Home and many parts but not the whole. I never received your nudge to write or publish until now, and the healing continues to grow!

This new language you’re teaching me to speak holds the dialects of Belief, Trust and Divine Love. In symbols, flashes of visions, thoughts and feelings, in my passion for reading, in song lyrics and through others you deliver messages to be received by an open heart. Awareness turns up the volume, contemplation is the interpreter and hindsight acts as my rewind button, needed when I fail to pick up your message. I rest assured you will continue to send until received. Connecting the dots leads to words and phrases that move me toward clarity and understanding; to the experiences that lead to a Knowing—where the unseen becomes seen and felt deeply in my heart. 

The flash of the artwork you sent created a visual imprinted on my heart. I work to recreate it digitally as I interpret it to mean a new beginning for us both. Standing atop Mother Earth with rays of light filling all spaces, I am looking at the Universe, graced with a panoramic view; you are a part of this Universe. I choose colors with no names and paint the celestial heavens to express the Love and gratitude I have for you bringing me to this new beginning. A beginning where I imagine we launch our parallel journeys together; yours as Divine-spirit and mine to what living forward holds as spirithuman. I envision that in our launch, you leave a contrail of color that shouts "I'll Love you forever, by your side I'll be; your open heart brought you Home to me." Melissa’s gift comes full circle as I see and feel the importance it plays out here.

And just when I think understanding and clarity have helped me move forward, that lack of physical sight and touch re-awakens and leaves me with a "something missing" feeling. . . a gap I can't find the words to describe. I have always felt there was a missing piece (peace), missing pieces to this grief journey of mine. There were two actually; how the aftereffects of traumatic grief affected all aspects of me and peace. I’m missing the constant flow of peace, peace as a foundation, rock solid and unmoving. I feel moments of peace in receiving your words, when being filled with eternal wisdom. I miss the peace that family brought to my heart, that feeling of completion when you were living in the flesh. This peace the human me yearns to feel again and I am ready for the spirit part of me to remember Peace; to bring me everlasting Peace that can only be found on a Soul Journey.

Maybe this is what living forward means. I engage in another self-pep talk. "Wisdom doesn't have the same sense of fulfillment as the hugs or kisses. It brings forth a great amount of joy, yet this is what your Love has evolved to, our now connection.  It's a short jump from my soul to your spirit knowing you'll always answer the call and I'll always make it to the other side of the gap. I think I'm waiting for that gap to close and I haven't been shown the answer of how to, or maybe there isn't one. Maybe the gap is filled with Love, leaving space for the missing and a reminder that where there is breath, there exists a human part of me that the spirit part needs to fulfill this earthly experience. Can't the missing just stop hurting? Maybe this is the light of living forward, gently inviting the missing to walk with me, expanding releasing constriction.

In a morning Logopraxis* connection, my daily spiritual practice, I gain insight that I am ready for a new beginning, the beginnings of a soul journey. You’ve answered questions, guided me and loved me so fully and in this safe space, I become aware of a yearning as deep for a remembrance of soul, for a personal relationship with God as my yearning for a continued relationship with you in spirit.

"When we accept what is, letting go of our hope for a different or better past, we are led into a much greater freedom. And as long as there is accountability and forgiveness as part of the process, healing will almost inevitably follow."
Richard Rogers from a CAC meditation week of Dec 8 –13, 2019

To this quote I would add . . . “letting go of our hope for a different or better past”, or waiting to be delivered to a new future. I believe I am holding onto this unseen expectation.

The gift of guidance continues and I am led to A Course of Love, a channeled work by Mari Perron akin to A Course in Miracles. A hidden gem that I was not meant to discover until now. I feel such resonance with this work. At times, most times it feels like I am joined in a private conversation for my soul's growth. “Seek and you shall find”. I have found and no longer have a need to seek—learning is what remains. I read from the Course:

"You stand at the precipice with a view of the new world glittering with all the beauty of heaven set off at just a little distance in a golden light."
A Course of Love

The illustration! Matthew I am in awe, wonder and gratitude. Another validation and a full-circle moment. You help me tweak my perception and what I had perceived as observing a very special moment of you Matty, in spirit , uniting with the Voice of Many, returning to the ONE, I now see that this is my new beginning, standing at the precipice of two worlds. You are witnessing my release of hope, opening the door to my soul journey where I’ll learn to simply BE as my soul whispered to me.  Hope, let go and surrendered returning like a boomerang as Peace. In Peace I am finding my way Home in the present. Hope encompassed the future in the beginning and middle of my grieving, I need the present now as I live forward. I am “Trusting the Journey . . . Loving the not-yet”. Words I became aware of through Sara Ruble and encouraged to live by as well as the wisdom of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who teaches that evolution is a constant—man, spirit, the Universe. This is my RSVP to Grief's open invitation to life's reentry as "trust the journey" becomes visible and written, as doubt fades and trust strengthens as I live "loving the not-yet". As I meet you Matty, soul/spirit to spirit, our roles of Mother/Son dim as we unite in the connection of Divine Love, and a much stronger bond forms in our reconnection.

This is my soul's understanding of grief. I am guided to the learning and in awareness I open myself to the experience. Once experienced it becomes my KNOWING and the experience becomes imprinted, unseen words now written onto the heart—where growth and healing live.

I’ve experienced grief from its beginning, middle and lifetime forward. It simply isn't enough to write your story, my story, our story. Grief has a story to tell yet the words, the language, the people so sorely needed in our lives to hear grief’s story, the ones we are deeply connected to that would make words and language unnecessary are the ones that are physically missing. Grief demands more than words and when I give grief my all, she gives it all back to me—in integration of the shattered pieces, in drawing me to my unseen soul, to the process of healing physically and spiritually.

The tears are flowing as my tumbleweed of emotions roll freely with the force of missing you today. Peace is the wind, my newly discovered foundation that sees the possibility of new life in these jumbled, chaotic tumbleweed of emotions; allowing them to run their course, extracting the beauty, the balance needed to shine a light on my new life with purpose and meaning.

Thank you Matty for guiding me these five years, for showing me the other side of grief, for helping me to re-enter life through the power of Love, for helping me find my soul.

Love you with all the Unnamed Colors of our Unseen Rainbows.

Mom

*Follow this link for an explanation of logopraxis,  It is a technique that centers and grounds me as it opens me to connecting and receiving. 
https://swedenborg.com/recap-how-to-write-the-word-on-your-heart/

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