Shifting from Living Grief to Being with Dying...

My stomach churns with worry, my mind races with uncertainty, my heart beats deep with anticipatory loss.  We are in hospice, my beautiful daughter finding peace in a still unknown and unfinished journey…
 
C.S. Lewis in his A Grief Observed reveals that “No one ever told me that grief was so much like fear.  I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.  The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning.  I keep swallowing.”
 
I have been living in grief for so long, I naively thought I would be prepared for being with dying.  But I’m not.  And I am pulling on every resource I have to be present, to bear witness and remain an advocate for my daughter.
 
I’m raw, vulnerable, tender in spots I never felt before; collapsing into sobs that rack my body hours later.  I have foregone the makeup and any futile attempts to normalize what suffering looks like.  I can no longer hide my tear filled eyes or wipe the sadness from my face amid the deep deep sense of helplessness that has washed over me.
 
Roshi Joan Halifax writes, “The ultimate relationship we can have is with someone who is dying. Here we are often brought to grief, whether we know it or not. Grief can seem like an unbearable experience. But for those of us who have entered the broken world of loss and sorrow, we realize that in the fractured landscape of grief we can find the pieces of our life that we ourselves have forgotten.”
 
I can only hope that on the other side of my sorrow I’m able find the pieces of my life that I have forgotten.  That I will have the strength to open my eyes, to practice humility, and heal what right now seems unbearable.