“Radical acceptance of our story is the only way to move forward. All that matters is what is actually in your story.    And part of radically accepting it is letting your own story break your heart.”

 

I came across this quote by Katherine Wolf, while searching for more grief and healing podcasts, and I couldn’t agree more. I hadn’t heard of her story before, and I am amazed by the path she has chartered for her life in spite of the challenges life has dealt her. In her writings Wolf talks about disrupting the myth that joy can only be found in a pain-free life. Wow.

The thing is, though, for me, I still at times fight our story as a family. Like a lawyer arguing a case for a different verdict, a different sentence, hoping for a reversal of the outcome. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum in the checkout lane after Mommy paid without getting yet another stuffy friend. I still have moments of rage and refusal to accept what is, while fully aware that, to move forward, to arrive at what might feel like healing, I will have to surrender to it.

The light went off for me during one of my hikes with our precious furry baby about a year ago.

I was so angry. For my hubby. For our kids. For me. For our family.

I couldn’t understand how or why death was supposed to be part of our story. It felt so unfair. So cruel. I was so tired of being so angry and screaming at God for allowing this to happen to us.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way…

Then the phrase radical surrender popped into my head. I sat with it for a bit…And it clicked. The next big step in my healing will come when I radically surrender to our reality. When I radically accept that this was, within my set of beliefs, God’s plan for our lives. When I stop fighting what cannot be changed. It is exhausting. I’m not sure what that moment would feel or look like for me. I do know it’s not going to feel like its all better. It will never be.

But I’m not fully there yet.

While on vacation this summer, I did my best to enjoy myself. I checked in with the teenagers, who slept in every morning, which gave me an opportunity to have some quality alone time. Get up, have coffee, pray and meditate by the ocean. Do beach and aqua! yoga, which both proved to be equal parts challenging and forgiving.

I walked around, went to the beach, the pool, got food, got drinks. Alone. Then, when the kids got up, we did our thing: pool, beach, sunsets, biking around town. It was all going great, I thought. But by day three, I crashed. I had been trying too hard to “enjoy” myself, by myself, and I terribly missed my partner in crime.

I just cried. And cried. And cried.

I am not afraid to be alone. As a matter of fact, in a way, I’m used to it, and I enjoy it. But not when my heart has been ripped out from me without my consent. I imagined how much we would have enjoyed this together. Letting the kids sleep in and having some time to ourselves on vacation, whaaaat???!!!. Finally we would get some of our couple time back, right? Wrong. We were robbed of that, too.

I imagine this journey to radical surrender is more of a marathon, maybe I’ll be able to see the “mile markers” of acceptance, or freaking post-traumatic growth or whatever along the way. Choosing myself to fully acknowledge and accept that this is our story, and letting it break my heart. And I guess part of that process will be learning how to let my story break my heart…without letting it break me.

For now, we are back home. Full of new memories and experiences. Traveled and exhausted. Trying to be as prepared as we can for a new school year full of uncertainties.

  Hasta la próxima! Until next time  Peace.