If you were told to
pipe down,
settle down,
quiet down,
And you learned to
tamp down,
shut down,
look down,
Isn’t it time to
step up,
stand up,
speak up?
You don’t have to
give up.
Just lift up
& look up.
Now is your time.
Awaken the authentic you.
Turn the page.
Be the author
& the character
in a story
worth telling.
“Inside your home, you keep mementos of your past that help or hinder your movement into the future.” ~ Kathryn L. Robin
I think I know by now what might throw me, because I consider myself experienced in grief.
I already endured the deaths of my brother, mother and brother-in-law. I’ve navigated life without my beloved for more than four seasons now.
Silly me, thinking I’ve got a handle on grief.
I remember what my friend Heather said as I announced I was crossing the one-year line: “Oh, honey. You’re just getting started.”
I shivered, but didn’t show it. She didn’t know then how strong I am. She’d see. Yeah, sure.
Then, Heather showed me her scars from when grief walked on her heart—like bear claw marks. And, I saw her beauty shining.
I knew, as hard as my path is, hers was harder. And yet, there she is—standing, advancing, dancing with divine feminine fire.
That will be me, I thought.
I didn’t know on a Thursday afternoon I’d squeeze my dead boyfriend’s Colgate toothpaste tube for the umpteenth time into admission that there’s absolutely no more of this thing his hand touched every morning for months.
Silly. Ridiculous. Who the hell takes toothpaste from a dead man’s house?
I did. Now, it feels like one more thing I have to give back. It stays on the edge of my sink for a week. I can’t make myself throw it away.
I think I know what will throw me: anniversaries, birthdays, KISS songs. Actually, those make me shout, “I want to rock and roll all night and party every day!”
But, sometimes the things I don’t make a big deal of silently overwhelm my heart.
The little things—like toothpaste?!—might throw me on a random Thursday, maybe even make me think I’ve made no progress.
Stop. I remember the day I took the tube from his house. It was just days after he died. I gathered my shampoo, conditioner and razor from his shower and replayed the last time I’d taken one with him. Then, grief sucker punched me in my gut: that was the last time.
I crumpled to the floor and Kevin’s brother Glenn swept me up in his arms from behind. This was the first time I’d met him. He held me with grief’s grace, giving me a hug that felt like Kevin’s arms, his breath, home.
Just standing required enormous energy.
Now, I’m standing. I’m breathing. I’m walking, loving, dancing and writing.
And yet, I die a little inside when grief’s winds remind me how much I still miss the man I never wanted to walk away from.
Look, Icey, he says from some other world. I see I’ve squeezed a bit of toothpaste—and life—daily.
I haven’t gone crazy (although I considered it). I stayed sane in the midst of this f*cked up thing I did not want to happen to me.
Now, I smile at the size of my emotional biceps.
I know I can let one more thing go. Or not.
“Bring me your suffering.
The rattle of broken bones.
Bring me the riot in your heart.
Angry, wild and raw.
Bring it all.
I am not afraid of the dark.”
~ Mia Hollow
Sadness slipped inside my skin today. She’d taken a vacation and I began to think of her in the past tense. I was making peace with my beloved’s passing and the signs from the other side waning. I’d be alright.
Until I wasn’t, again. The heaviness came upon me after days of living in my head and socializing.
It’s not that I’m pretending I’m fine with others. I am. In the moment.
That’s a giant leap from where I was when Kevin died a year ago.
Now, there are more good days than bad.
Today isn’t wretched, but I’m tired from digging my way out of Grief Canyon to get a better view.
For all my progress, I’m without him. Still.
I miss him like trees miss rain. Still.
I wail in the woods. Still.
Even with hope’s evidence before me.
After the death of my sister’s husband five years ago, she’s fallen in love again. It’s a beautiful example. I knew it would happen because she wanted it so fiercely she manifested this new love.
The only thing I want today is my yesterday man—not another one. The one who soothed my soul and served as alchemy to a better me.
In grief, we stand staring at our path with our only desire to run back.
The year my boyfriend died ended. A new year began. I drew a line in my mind, but it washed away like words in the sand at the beach.
On January 17th, friends and I celebrated my beloved’s birthday. While memories of his last two taunted me, I toasted him, ate Italian food, laughed, told stories, and ached for his presence.
I endured Valentine’s Day—that cheesy holiday I made fun of until he gave it meaning.
The anniversary of my beloved’s death came and went, like it does for so many.
We move on, but they’re all just days on a calendar. Without him.
“Our job isn’t to fight fate, but to help each other through, not as soldiers, but as shepherds. That’s how we make it okay, even when it’s not.” ~ Lucy Kalanithi
Bridge Builder, Light Bearer. Those were the words I wanted on my tombstone.
Now, I think escort might be good. No, not that kind of escort!
It’s been my honor to chaperon people across their own life bridges. I didn’t have to build the bridge, but I often shined the light.
Sometimes, like when your sister’s husband dies, all we can do is sit in the dark with our loved ones and hold the light until it catches them.
The bridge seems to form under one’s feet as they walk the path of life.
However, traversing through the darkness—whether it comes from death, divorce, disaster, or simply losing our way—is lonely.
No one else can feel our unique brand of despair in our precious, vulnerable hearts.
That’s why for many years I didn’t let people in. I preferred to suffer the dark nights of my soul alone. I’d saddle up to my suicidal tendencies and keep everyone away from me. Until I didn’t.
Even now, I can’t let everyone in, but I’ve learned to recognize the light bearers. They’re the ones who stand in the darkness with you, shine the light, and fully acknowledge your right to sit where you are for as long as you need to. Light bearers aren’t there to convince.
They’re a power by their presence. They see your pain and appreciate it without pity. They don’t try to pull you out of the pain, but hold your hand while you’re in it.
That’s what my sister does for me—always. Not just since the death of my beloved.
Jayne showed me the light when we were kids and our parents divorced and later, when I was a teenager, she opened her home to me.
My sister has held the light a thousand times.
The light is like bird food. I can’t actually feed the birds. But, I can fill the feeder and let them come.
Now, I’ve become a woman whose heart fills with the sight of cardinals’ colors, beaks and feathers outside my window.
I’ve done nothing; I’ve done something.
I offer food, but I can’t physically carry or direct the birds to it. That’s not my job; it’s God’s, or angels or the Universe. This Amazing Force alerts the birds the food is out and calls them to fly to it.
For me, that’s God. He builds bridges and sends the escorts to help us across the dark chapters of our lives into the light.
God isn’t just in the magic. He’s in the in-between moments building bridges to tomorrow, to our next beautiful chapter.
My biggest lesson: we don’t have to build the bridges!
Often, I have no idea how I’m going to get from here to there.
How would I get out of my marriage and onto solid ground? How could I get out of sales after 20 years? How could I become a writer? How could I get out of relationships that weren’t right—especially when I was desperate to make them into more?
Sometimes falling apart is the bridge.
If those men I was involved with hadn’t let me down or dismissed me, I would’ve missed the greatest love I’ve ever known—sacred, worth-it-all love.
Deep in it, when my beloved Fire died and I cried every f*cking day, when devastation felt like my middle name, God was building a bridge.
My sister—and so many others—held the light.
Earlier, when my sister’s husband died (four years before I lost my guy), I wanted to be the one to build the bridge for her. But, the only bridge she wanted to walk over was the one leading to yesterday, the one that no longer existed.
So, I prayed and stayed present through the black nights that rippled into days, weeks, months and years. I held the light, as did a whole gang of angels—both human and beyond.
Somehow, my sister, after going one direction for 33 years of marriage, learned to walk a new way through the darkness. Over time, a bridge to a better life formed beneath her—right there, in the dark.
Now, after all we’ve been through, I no longer feel the need to be a bridge builder.
Instead, I pray: God, use me. May I be of benefit. Let me shine the light. And especially, Help me pay it forward.
All I can tell you is this: that rush I get from feeding the birds is nothing compared to being a light bearer for another human being.
When the light catches their eyes—after the darkness—they almost fly.
When my grandfather came to New Mexico for my mother’s funeral, I asked if he’d be more comfortable staying at my father’s house or my stepfather’s. He said, “I’m not comfortable with any of this.”
His words were a declaration from a man who’d buried his wife of 56 years, and the lady friend who followed, after being an amazing caretaker to both.
My granddad had triple bypass surgery and came out of it to take up walking five miles a day. He’d spent his entire career working his way up in Mountain Bell Telephone Company—way before cell phones.
When this man said he wasn’t comfortable, it wasn’t a complaint so much as a clarification that life is often uncomfortable.
Comfortableness is a luxury of our modern society. Yet, it’s been in my least comfortable situations—such as loved ones dying and me divorcing men I once vowed to stay with until death—I dedicated myself to higher values.
I don’t believe growth only comes from life bitch-slapping us. Those are just the occasions our character is clearly called into play.
Although I used to live by the motto, “What doesn’t destroy me makes me strong,” I learned pain isn’t something to invite and it doesn’t always ignite the positive.
Some people succumb to living a life of agony because they become accustomed to it. Change, even for the better, can be uncomfortable.
When I was flat broke living in a motel that kept me on high alert and distressed all night, I proved thinking and acting clearly in a state of fear can be a challenge.
My friend Sam convinced me to get out of there, not because she worried for my safety, but because she heard me telling myself it was okay.
I was becoming comfortable living in a space where I didn’t belong, where drug dealers argued in the hallways.
I even tried to convince Sam the situation was fine.
She said, “No, this isn’t something to become comfortable with. Don’t start thinking you deserve this and allowing it to become your identity. You get out of there or I’ll get you out, but you’re not staying.” Now, that’s a friend.
Like my other friend who responded when I set aside my ego and asked for his help to get into a safer place.
In a way, I put myself in that disturbing situation because I became comfortable in a job (retail) where I wasn’t growing and a marriage that was dying.
The comfort kept me from planning for a better future. After all, I made good money and my husband loved me.
I loved him too, but I how can we love ourselves if we stifle our truth on a daily basis?
The truth was even though my life was secure in so many ways, I wanted more.
I wanted more out of a relationship and as much as my husband wanted to be my hero, he wasn’t able to engage in the depth, intimacy and passion I desired.
Sometimes our longing for more is our soul showing us the way.
At work, although I was a top producer, I found myself bored and unfulfilled.
While many of my coworkers loved what they were doing, I craved a career with more meaning, even when I didn’t know what that might look like.
While living a life that looks good from the outside, it can be challenging to admit we want more.
With courage, we can invite the comfort we have to be our launch pad into growth.
We must be willing to stretch for more, to dive into the discomfort.
It wasn’t easy to go back to school at age 37 when I’d never been a good student.
It was difficult to sign up for my Masters in Technical Communication when I believed myself to be the least technical person I knew.
Then, uneasiness riddled me as I feared the adult college students I taught were smarter and worldlier than I was.
By stepping into the discomfort, I found my way to a life doing what I love.
Now, here I am, years later—comfortable. Once again, I must recognize where I’m unsettled—in order to rise.
See, I wrote my first book and although it was work, I enjoyed the process.
Now, it’s time for the hard work—marketing myself and my writing and seeking an agent to represent the most important project of my life.
At this stage, I acknowledge why I held back. I resisted the discomfort of potential rejection or failure. Don’t we all resist at times?
No more. I’m stepping into it so I can grow into the professional published writer I’m on the path to becoming. It’s a winding path and not without its pitfalls.
The mistake we make is thinking our lives should always be comfortable.
When my boyfriend died in March of 2016, grief became the uncomfortable, foreign, painful world I existed in.
Until I started to make peace with my grief.
Now, I’ve lost enough loved ones to know grief isn’t something we can take off like a winter coat just because it’s heavy.
Sometimes grief is the only thing that keeps us warm when it feels like our hearts are freezing.
In another chapter that began with “not being comfortable with any of this,” I’ve become accustomed to my grief.
This is the stage from where I move on and stretch once again into the uncomfortable, where I walk in the world without him and date men who won’t compare to the one I lost.
This is where I lean into laughter and joy, in spite of them feeling uncomfortable.
Because if we refuse to reach for more and better, if we remain where all is comfortable, we live in stagnation.
What was once appropriate transforms into an opportunity to expand, to live more fully.
Growth isn’t always comfortable. In fact, it often hurts like hell.
Know this: it’s worth the discomfort, the challenge and the ache. If we’re willing to become uncomfortable, we can grow forward through the discomfort of life into our better selves.
As for me, I refuse to die a slow death in yesterday’s comfort.
It happens still—not often, but there are days when I look in the mirror and see myself through my beloved’s eyes.
I gasp at my beauty and light up at the sight of me.
It’s not ego trying to gain on my good looks, or my slightly insecure self desperate to deny my faults.
No, it’s him. I see myself as he sees me.
Feminine. Bright. Easy and extraordinary.
Not flawless, but perfect with the scar on my lip—lips that call for kissing. Eyes that invite gaze. Body worthy of touch.
Seeing myself through his eyes, I feel love—intentional, chosen, yet gifted.
I’ve looked in the mirror for five decades, but not until my beloved’s death did I have this vision, this new way of seeing myself. It’s a subtle shift beyond my confident acceptance (which I worked damn hard to earn) and even praise (which served as affirming armor).
No, this way I see myself is how I saw him since the fateful few days when we slipped from friendship into the fire of love.
I looked at this man for years before I ever saw the treasure before me.
Overnight, I came to relish the sight of him—his eyes, moustache and stature that was all man.
I enjoyed looking at and touching his skin, face and long legs.
I took in the way he sat in his kitchen and office, smoked cigars and made coffee. And damn, did his smile light me up!
Now, all of that joy is mine again—from a glimpse in the mirror.
I see myself the way he saw me, the way I saw him, through the lens of sacred love.
My prayer is that I may learn to see the world with such eyes.
Alice in Authorland 