Working at hospice (as well as in my own experiences of loss) I saw that many of us who have suffered a major loss often begin asking the deeper questions about life and death. As we search for answers to why it happened, grapple with our beliefs about life and death and try to find meaning in our losses, new dimensions of life are revealed to us. Our broken heart can become an open heart. We can become more conscious, more connected and more able to surrender to what is.
For me, when my older sister died at the age of thirty-three of a brain tumor, I was devastated. Raised in a family with the “stiff-upper-lip” method of dealing with difficult situations, I had no way to process the intense emotions of grief. Somehow, avoidance didn’t work for me. I fell into a depression for several months. Dealing with Pam’s death was a crash course in learning how to feel and express emotions, and over time I began to feel more alive, more human.
At the same time, I began diving deeper into my spiritual quest. Synchronistic events, people and books came into my life that pointed me in a direction that continued to expand my journey of spiritual awakening—an ever-evolving process that continues today. I saw the same thing happen in the lives of many of the clients who came to see me at hospice for grief counseling.
A client (I’ll call him Jim) came to see me years after his young child had died in an accident. His life had been turned upside down, and his family had struggled to put their lives back together. But he shared with me that although the loss had been devastating and he wished it had never happened, he was now, years later, able to be grateful for how he had grown in ways he had never thought possible. He said that losing his child had opened him to a deeper connection with life. He was able to relate to people with greater empathy and authenticity. As Jim had processed through the grief, the walls that had separated him from others and from experiencing life more fully had come down. He recognized that his ability to be present in a way that hadn’t been possible before was a gift his grief had given him.
A few years ago, a woman in her early twenties (I’ll call her Sherry) came to my office. Her new husband had died suddenly, and she was still struggling to adjust to life without him a few years later. She was young and hadn’t begun to question what this life is all about, but it was obvious that dealing with this event over time would shape her, guide her in new directions, open up new aspects to her life just as the loss of my sister had done for me all those years ago. Sherry began asking questions about life that her peers hadn’t begun to consider.
Sherry’s life trajectory took a sharp turn at a vulnerable stage in her development. At whatever stage it occurs, facing mortality is a powerful wake-up call, and as we learn the lessons it offers to teach us, we have the opportunity to move into greater and greater wholeness. Following a spiritual path can lead us to a greater understanding of the bigger picture of life, to the knowledge that our limited view of things is not the whole story, that we are much more than we appear.
Note to self: Can you open the gifts of grief and loss?
