Universal Grief

It seems cliche to be writing about grief as a bereaved parent. After being given multiple grief books after loosing Legend I would always say I will never be writing about grief as a spotlight. As my mom always used to say; “never say never”. In all honesty todays blog post comes at a time when I feel the world is experiencing this major wave of grief. Grief for the life they were living, grief of the plans they had in the next weeks months or year and also the kind of grief most often thought of; The loss of a loved one/s.

It is odd to be in a spot of observance of grief rather than in the throngs of it. Personally my life has been bumpy, rocky and heart opening since loosing Legend. I have felt every wave of emotion while simultaneously feeling nothing at all. Grief has taken many forms and in the early stages came in a few waves each time expressing itself in different ways. There were months where I could feel nothing, I was in a lot of ways dead but in my body. Then there was an awakening to my pain and loss but only in doses and hitting me out of no where. Today I am more accustomed to feeling while being thrown into my grief at random unexpected times. I will still pull over and lay in the grass wherever I am if I feel an intense wave coming on but I know how to flow with my grief now. Do not get me wrong it took many times to figure out how to flow with grief, how to not just completely loose it and how to ride it out letting all the “FEELINGS” flood through me while trying to process it all. And let me also say that there will be times even today when I resist, resist, resist and am catapulted into the very same chaotic state that I experienced in the early stages of loss. Overall my grief and I go hand and hand, opposing states of being are my M.O. and living amongst loss is something I have accepted. Acceptance is the magic here really. It is the magic because what I realized was nothing could move in my life without acceptance of what has been lost. I think that is one of the phases grief takes on; not wanting to accept time is moving forward and for the world to stand still. Unfortunately that denial offers very little growth. I have sat in that pain, in that denial, in that state of not being able to accept all that was gone yet it served me in now way at all. It did not serve my family, loved ones or my souls purpose in this lifetime. It was not until grief and I started to mesh, started to learn what life with one another was going to be like that I was able to slowly star to accept my loss. It is extremely hard for me to even write down in literal words now, viscerally my entire being is screaming out “YOU DID NOT ACCEPT LEGENDS LOSS”, and at times I even wonder if I have. The way I have come to make sense with what accepting means to me is to explain it to myself and others struggling like this: Accepting does not mean forgetting, accepting does not make it ok, accepting just allows for you to continue being you, doing you and pursuing you without the guilt or constant chains that not accepting loss will have on your being.

While the world is completely forced to slow down and to be in this raw space where many are grieving; I am reminded of what it felt like to be in such a similar unfamiliar state of being. I am reminded of how my own resistance locked me in my body being dead to the world around. I am reminded of the bizarre way the world slowed down and tuned into what really matters; love. I am reminded of how easy it is to take every day, every person and every moment for granted. Yet this time I am awake and more alive than I have ever been in the past 2 years and though this time in history is extremely challenging I know that their is hope. Hope because even though my life has not gotten easier; it has gotten richer in love, relationships, meaning and purpose. Hope because I know that your soul can go through the worst of the worst and come out with strength and understanding you could never imagine to experience in this lifetime. I have hope because I know that adversity births new ways of thinking and aligns people with what is true, honest and real in this world. As I woke up this morning listening to the sound of the birds chirping outside my window and enjoyed a Thursday morning cuddling in bed with my girls I am reminded of how trivial our day to day is and how quickly we can forget what really matters.

XOX

Chloe Pestana