and Finding Possibility
[COMMUNITY: Part 1]
You Don’t Move On
But you must move ‘with’
you must shake hands with Grief,
welcome her in,
for she lives with you now.
Pull her a chair at the table
and offer her comfort.
She is not the monster
you first thought her to be.
She is Love.
And she will walk with you now,
peacefully,
if you let her.
–Donna Ashworth
Has it already been six months? I’m amazed that our Soaring Spirits Riverside group went from two willing widows to a group of 20 widowed peeps seeking the medicine that only the widowed can offer.
Walking with other widows with similar goals calls me to show up for myself and others.
Meeting widowed people who are deep in loss connects me with my own wound. Our varying states of brokeness mirrors weather. We can be fine–totally fine–for long periods of time and then (out of nowhere) it all rushes in. Reason dictates that what we are feeling is normal. Perhaps we scold ourselves into “just getting over it.” We may opt to run as fast as we can to outrun our misery.
Leading the Riverside group accidentally placed me in the familiar position that Dan and I lived out for.so.many.years–at the hub of a wheel with many spokes. The center of a support system that does not provide answers, but creates an infrastructure where others can show up for each other. A space that with love and attention we co-create community.
We are the medicine for each other.
