The Wild Edge of Sorrow

This book has been sitting on my nightstand for months. I love reading, yet that’s another thing that took a back seat to trauma and grief.

I finally started reading the book today. As I lay on the sand and opened the book, I laughed to myself.

“Wow, girl… you’re a hoot. Bringing a book about grief and loss as your beach read. Light summer reading, anyone?” But this is part of me now.

Books, podcasts, therapy, and support groups continue to be my lifelines.

He doesn’t know it yet, but Anderson Cooper and I fall asleep together almost every night.

As I still struggle to quiet my brain and settle into sleep, his has become the soothing voice that calms my soul. Through his podcast, All There Is, he shares his own story of loss and invites others to tell theirs. That’s where I first heard about The Wild Edge of Sorrow and its author, Francis Weller. I’ve listened to that interview over and over again. Weller has this cathartic way of describing the surrender to grief as an almost beautiful part of life.

This week we’re spending a few days with my parents in a place we all love.

The beach has always held special meaning for me. We got married at the beach. We spent as many vacations there as we possibly could. So many memories.

Our last vacation together as a family of four was at the beach.

It’s amazing how being broken open by grief also heightens your awareness of the ordinary, the almost mundane.

I experience nature so differently now. I can feel my soul healing with every walk along the shore, every swim in the ocean, every hike through the mountains, every drive through the desert, every walk in the snow. The warmth of the sun on my skin. The sand beneath my feet. The breeze across my face.

It continues to amaze me how one can feel such profound joy and long deeply for someone, at the same time.

Today the kids and went into the ocean and had an absolute blast. But in my mind, I kept reaching for my husband. I wanted to jump on him like I always did. To hug him. To kiss him.

This is why this paragraph by Weller resonated so much with me. It explains the duality of embracing death and experiencing life at the same time.

 

“I’m not sure how or when I began my apprenticeship with sorrow. I do know that it was my gateway back into the breathing and animate world. It was through the dark waters of grief that I came to touch my unlived life… There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitively alive. Through this, I have come to have a lasting faith in grief.”

 

Lasting faith in grief… I am going to have to sit with that for a while.

Tonight, as I write this, there’s a full moon hanging over the ocean. I’m sitting on a lounge chair by the pool, feeling the breeze. I sent the kids upstairs and asked if I could stay here just a little longer.

It is often said that healing happens in community. That grief needs to be witnessed. That grief is like an ocean. Sometimes gentle, some times angry, sometimes quiet, sometimes temperamental, but always flowing.

Thank you for being part of my community and healing. Thank you for witnessing my grief and loss. Thank you for letting me keep my beautiful husband alive through these pages.

 

 

Hasta la próxima! Until next time  Peace.