The Destiny of My Soul

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Life is smooth sailing followed by hurricanes. Everyone will have hurricanes. Or not. Some people seem to have gotten a permission slip from God to travel the smoother road. It’s not that they don’t experience the daily struggles of being human.

However, as an example, let’s compare my little sister Emily to her friend I’ll call Frida. My little sister has a nice life with three great kids and a husband who totally rocks. They’ve got faith and success like they followed a recipe.

On the other hand, friend Frida has brain cancer. That’s bad. Could there be anything scarier than doctors cutting on your brain? Then, Frida’s baby died. They say losing a child is the worst. And a baby who’s born just enough hope in a family to make you believe life’s getting better? Fucking ouch! It might make the other child’s gluten issues seem small, but really, more issues? Then, more brain cancer?! It returns? Are you fucking kidding me?! Do we chalk this up to ridiculously bad luck?

I recently read Destiny of Souls. That book offers me the easiest to swallow answer to why some people suffer extraordinary hardships while others seem to collect blessings. The book says souls choose before coming to earth. Can I buy that? Does it resonate with me? Did I choose this? My sister would say absolutely not!

But, how is it we both knew my brother Bill would die young? He never seemed to have regrets. His motto remained “Life’s a party.” What about my mom? When she had cancer, I asked her if she wanted to do anything, like go to Europe. She said, “Oh honey, I’ve done everything.” (She hadn’t been to Europe!) One psychic said my mom didn’t know she could change things.

So, anyhow, did I choose this life, to be born into this body and these circumstances? What do I see? Why might I have chosen this path? What is it I’m trying to learn?

As a child, I struggled. I didn’t feel loved. Maybe I was, but I didn’t feel it. Even then, I was angry at injustice. I learned to love others unconditionally, but I was hard on myself. Eventually, I learned to give myself the kind of love I sought and when I did, I attracted real love. The truth is, I’ve been blessed with much love and found my way through a lot of loss.

Lessons: 1) Love yourself. 2) Be true to yourself. 3) Change and loss happen throughout life; that’s how we grow. 4) Choose to grow. 5) Help others up when they fall, not through advice, but with presence. 6) Hone your gifts and share them with the world. That’s your destiny.

So, I believe I have a destiny. I don’t really know why some people get brain cancer or why one woman would be raped three different times or why some people live charmed lives. For years, I looked for the skeletons or hardships in everybody’s closet, especially those who seemed happy and successful. Now, I just believe people have different paths. Period. Living mine to the best of my ability and respecting others’ is what I find important. I find it to be my destiny, the destiny of my soul.

 

Sitting My Ass Down into Acceptance

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It’s hard to move forward when you keep one foot in yesterday. Or two. Or cling to it like a child clings to her blanket.

I determine to stand, as if my decision could claim the light and calm the crashing waves in my heart. Unfortunately, it’s not a matter of sitting on my ass, then choosing to stand. I’ve been thrown, no… I dove into the Grand Canyon of grief. I’m clawing to climb out. It’s not like the 12-mile hike out of Havasu, a side canyon I once trekked out of with a boyfriend.

Grief is the triathlon of emotions. Swimming a mile is merely the beginning. Yet, I think I must be done—every time. It’s all imaginary and arbitrary: the race, the time, the power, and the control.

Grief isn’t giving in, but it’s letting go and allowing. Oh, how I hate that! I beg, “Coach, put me in!” I want to be in the game, but I’m injured. I want to run and compete, but I can’t even stand. Please, at least let me play!

Injuries often require physical therapy. I’m in grief therapy. No, I don’t have an actual therapist. Although I consider it, I like to save those appointments for when life crashes in on me and I don’t know what to do.

Experienced in grief, I know what to do. Sometimes, I just tire of doing it.

I must practice acceptance. When I hurry, I think, “Ok, I’ve accepted that. I’ve grieved. Now, back to my goals.” Grief smiles, right before she bitch slaps me.

Like an almost healed sprained ankle can do when too much weight is put on it suddenly. Pain shoots straight up to fire off those neurons that scream, Fuck! Ouch! Ouch! Shit! Fuck! Damn! Ouch! My eyes fill with tears of pain, shame and anger. Pain is the signal to sit my ass back down and do some more healing.

It’s easier to deny or pretend I’ve accepted the emotional pain of grief, but like physical pain, pushing oneself too far or too fast has consequences.

So, today I’m back in grief therapy. I cry, write, pray, walk in the woods, and dance in my kitchen with my man who died seven months ago. I learn to accept a little more—the thing I least want to accept: he’s gone.

Screaming in a Cemetery

Alice Lundy6 Comments

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Yesterday, I lay in the grass in a cemetery. It’s a habit I’ve taken up since my boyfriend’s death. I let the clouds speak to me. Then, I rise.

My dead boyfriend tells me he has to go now. It’s time. It feels like he’s trying to break up with me. I say, “No, you said you’d stay with me.” I want to say forever, but he never said that, did he?

I can’t tell many people of our conversations—not because they’ll think I’m crazy (although it’s a consideration), but because they don’t believe. They look at me the way I look at my eight-year-old neighbor Parker when he says he has a black belt in karate. Or the way my stepbrother looks at me when I talk about God, condescending and a little self-righteous. He tells me he doesn’t believe in “the flying fairy.”

His response doesn’t diminish my faith so much as make me sorry he’s missing out. I feel no need to defend or explain that which can’t be proven, yet is as real to me as the sighting of a rainbow.

Like rainbows, stars and dragonflies, my dead lover, my friend, my twin flame Kevin comes to me. Truth is, I don’t give a damn if it’s fantasy. It’s mine. My connection and conversation with him continues. I’m in a world that feels like home, but it’s impossible, right?

Yes, impossible, like the love we had. Impossible, like all the words, experiences and sex we compacted into the two years lived like a decade. Impossible, like the fact that we knew each other for 25 years before either of us considered the thing that transformed us both. Impossible, like finding that kind of love in our fifties. Impossible, like he’s dead.

Kevin tells me he has to go. I beg him. “I still need you. Please don’t go! I’m not ready!” This is the third time we’ve had this conversation since his death, compared to the dozens of times he’s said, “I’m here, Icey. I’m here. It’s real. I’ve got you, Icey. I’m here.”

This—what feels like a break-up—was instigated by me the first time in June on the beach in Belize, the place I thought I’d go to drop off my grief. It was about as easy as abandoning a two-year old. Impossible. Kevin said, “I’m not leaving you, Icey.”

He called me Ice and I called him Fire. I keep melting, but he never goes out. He sends me signs, like the Capricorn Bar (he’s a Capricorn) on our morning walks at that yoga retreat. There are a thousand more I won’t say for fear you won’t believe anyway.

Yesterday in the cemetery, he told me he had to go. He’s not being cruel or saying he won’t come back, but he’s in a whole new world, too. He’s telling truth. I feel like a kid hearing, “Fido’s gone to heaven.” It’s a truth I’m not ready to hear, or am I?

No, I’m not. If Kevin was physically present, I’d cling to his ankles, seduce or guilt him into staying, though I never needed or wanted to resort to manipulation in our relationship on earth. He wouldn’t go for that kind of crap and I’m not that gal.

Still, in a cemetery I scream, “Don’t leave me!” I’m washed with peace. With love. His love. God’s love. And my mom’s—who’s also on the other side.

The second time Kevin and I had this conversation was a couple weeks ago. I was an emotional wreck. He said his presence wasn’t helping me, so he should go. Everything he does is about helping me. I told him it was. Then, I embraced his love all over again, like he convinced me to do in life.

Life—I have a full, beautiful, blessed one even with the loss. But, just because you know how fortunate you are doesn’t mean you feel it. Just because you stand on a beach in Belize and stare at turquoise water doesn’t make the noise of death subside.

However, I can see I’ve progressed. It’s weird to move forward in pain. It no longer chokes me, but God, how it hurts.

Kevin cannot wait for the pain to go away and in a sense, he never will. But now, I need to let him be in the world beyond.

I’m home now. It’s a day later. I decide…no, I’m overcome by a peace, a release. He says, “Yeah Icey, yeah, I got you. It’s ok. It’s going to be ok.”
 

Dear Grief Stricken

Alice Lundy4 Comments

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Dear Grief Stricken,

I’m so sorry for your loss. I know your heart is hurting. Yes, other hearts hurt, too. But, let’s talk about you. You had no choice in this pain. Your loss was thrust upon you, like being thrown from a car or poison injected into your system. Everything changed.

People will tell you you’re not alone. The truth remains, although others suffered similar or stand by your side, your grief is etched with your name. Deciphering how you deal with your pain and the people around you resides within you. Yet, I tell you, you’ve got a thousand angels standing guard for your heart alone, even if you think there are none.

Still, the path you must walk can only be carried by your feet. The vision forward and the meaning you give the past—all yours. The tears you shed run down your face. The memories play like movies in your mind.

How long this takes is your journey, but that doesn’t mean you get to choose a time frame or how deep you’ll delve into the pain. You’ll go as deep as it pulls. But, baby, you’ve got this.

Sometimes it feels like you’re a candidate for the looney bin. So, be it. If you can’t go crazy over grief, when will you let go?

You’ll be tested. I won’t tell you it’s going to be okay or don’t cry or don’t laugh. I’ll not advise you, knowing the line at your door for that.

I simply say, and I’m paying it forward here: I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry your heart is hurting. May it hurt less tomorrow.

 

 

Regaining Radiance

Alice Lundy6 Comments

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“Past, present, future—it’s all the same.” That’s what the psychic said my dead boyfriend said from the other side. Now, as I peruse old journals, I see it’s true. What I struggled with then—all the thens, is what is what I struggle with now, just in different forms.

The chapters of my life repeat: ch.1 I’ve Got to Get it Together, ch.2 How Can I Get it Together?, ch.3 I’m Getting it Together, ch.4 Hallelujah!, followed by ch.5 Storm Ahead or, Shit, I Didn’t See That Coming, then ch.6 I’m Falling Apart, often followed by I Can’t Believe I’m Fucking falling Apart Again! leading full circle to I’ve Got to Get it Together and How Can I Get it Together?

Here, bingo! Ding! Ding! Ding! This is the most important chapter, yet maybe my least favorite. It comes after the crash. It’s picking up the pieces of my heart and personality, my shattered identity after making the Dry Diving Team. It feels like my soul is being crushed, but it’s being called.

How Can I get it Together? comes right after my ego gets bitch slapped and my heart crumbles like coffee cake. The floor of my life’s foundation is a mess. My illusions prove untrue. That’s when my soul steps in like a kind, noble queen. She says, “Well my child, that’s done. Now, who would you like to become?”

It’s my moment of choice. When I was younger, my ego would rise, broken, but determined to be victorious. I didn’t take the queen’s hand, but rose on my own two feet—thank you very much! I struggled and won!

In other versions of the critical chapter, I had no fight and knew it. I didn’t even possess the courage to end it all. I hibernated, sometimes for years. I hid in my own dark cave and didn’t encounter the queen.

The queen is my soul. She’s here. She extends a hand. She offers compassion and wisdom. She waits with me and wipes my tears. The queen comforts me. She smiles with a radiance she says belongs to me. She whispers, “Honey, you’ve already got it together.”

She plays music and movies, awakening me to the drama and intrigue of life. The queen—my soul—she tells me a secret: “This is what you came for.”

Practicing Acceptance

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My now-deceased boyfriend Kevin and I lived cities apart and saw each other in bursts—days, weeks, even a month together—all in vacation mode, immersed in our love. Sometimes we went weeks without seeing each other, although we typically talked several times a day.

In a way, I’ve accepted his no longer calling. Yeah, in the way of listening to his voice mails over and over. Think I’m wallowing?

Maybe, but I think of wallowing more as misery. My grief therapy can be bittersweet. It’s the juxtaposition between yeah, it really was that wonderful, extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime kind of relationship and now it’s over.

Kevin was the ideal man for me. He was crazy, sexy, cool. He was my person I’d been searching and going through all those fools for. The proof is in his letters, voicemails, text messages, his shares with me on Facebook, and The Boyfriend Log ap I kept on my phone.

I tracked our relationship from day one—determined not to deny and put myself in a deep hole over some asshole again (i.e. get hurt). The evidence is there, all green and orange, amazing and happy, day after day. I didn’t make it up. It’s not like the guys I look at after a break-up and see all the ways I deceived myself.

Still, there was no way I could see the red sad symbol I’d chart on March 4, 2016. I must acknowledge not only the depth of the loss, but the greatness of our love. It wasn’t grandiose, but it was grand. It still is. I hold onto it as I let the reality of Kevin’s sudden and unexpected death sink in.

I walk in cemeteries and see proof of people dying and leaving loved ones to go on. It’s a path people have walked since the beginning of time.

I’m walking it, sometimes in circles. No worries, it’s not a race. There’s no winning or losing. Acceptance is a practice, like yoga. I stretch into it, some days stiffer than others. I’m present. I’m willing.

Yet, my mind darts to yesterday and my heart constricts. I resist owning what I still find difficult to fathom: my great love has died.

 

Like a Beautiful Tale

Alice Lundy2 Comments

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I am a peaceful woman warrior. I’ve journeyed through the darkness, heartache and loss. I’ve said goodbye more often than my middle name. I’ve started over about 117 times. I’ve cursed and kissed death. I’ve battled with her. I may not have always won, but I was in the war. That’s how I became a woman warrior.

I’ve gone blind and deaf. I’ve traveled the tunnels. I’ve seen the light. I’ve carried shields and swords. I’m skilled in using both. I’ve climbed cliffs and stepped barefoot across hot burning coals.

I learned to love the Fire! I learned to love. That’s how I became a woman.

I owned my power, my femininity and my force. I marched on until the darkest of nights captured me under bright stars.

In the heat of the battle, I was hit with sickness. It took me down. I was weary and wretched, lost and delirious. I slept and I dreamed.

When I awoke I was called to be a queen—to put an end to the wars. I declared peace in my soul and it spread like a beautiful tale.

I am a peaceful woman warrior and I smile at fear.

How our Grief is the Same.

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I’m forever the little sister, stomping in line behind my big sister, following in her footsteps closer than I care to admit. I’m the youngest, therefore determined to make my own path.

Yet, each time I forget something, my sister says, “I’m not surprised” or “Yeah, I get it” in a way that makes me think she thinks I’ve come down with what she had: widow brain.

The youngest child in me mentally screams, No, it’s not like that. Geez, I’m not even a widow. I wasn’t married. I was only with him as a couple for two years (the best two years of my life). But, no, my experience isn’t like yours. This is different.

Then, I start noticing how much I can’t remember.

Days are spent walking into rooms to find myself dumbfounded.

I stare at the ibuprofen bottle and only have a 50/50 shot at knowing if I already took them or just thought about it.

Everything is a daze, a dream, leaving what’s unfathomable to feel the most real.

I need quiet; I turn on the TV loud (as he did). I’m lost; I’m found. I’m going away and coming home. I can’t go out, but refuse to stay in. I want my sister’s company, but resent it.

I remember how badly I wished I could be my brother when my mom looked into my eyes after he passed.

Jayne loves me like that—like she’d do anything to take my pain away.

I love her back the way she loved me when her husband died—with all she had left after loving him for 33 years, missing him desperately, daily, and putting on the prettiest public face she could muster.

She was my sister; she was a porcupine. I loved her anyway, as she’s loving me now.

I’m prickly. I don’t give a shit.

It’s exhausting watching people tiptoe around me. How’s she doing? How’s she handling it/things?

I suppose they mean how am I coping with my boyfriend’s death. Today? Defensively. Because the word boyfriend compares him to guys whose names I can’t even remember.

Boyfriend trivializes what Kevin was to me. He was his nickname: FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

He was smooth jazz after decades of hard rock-n-roll. He was Saturday morning at a Flea Market with a smile on my face. How did that make me feel so free?

Kevin was something to me that all my words can’t capture, yet I can’t stop trying. If you’ve never known this level of love, you may think I’m a girl crushing on and going nostalgic for a dead man—too sweet to be true.

Yeah, I lived with Sally the Cynic in my head, too. Kevin banished her upon their first meeting. She came back with a vengeance—and was flat out rejected.

Without my sidekick to tell me love like this was bullshit, I started listening to my boyfriend.

He sounded like the ocean, smelled like coffee brewing, and appeared like a man.

He tasted like pomegranates and fresh, drinkable water from a cool mountain stream. He quenched my entire feminine being.

Kevin valued my tears and delighted in my stories, even though I tried to tell them tough.

Because I’m the little sister, I want to be BIG. Like my big sis when grief grabbed her by the throat, wrestled her to the floor and forced her to develop a new foundation.

But no, it’s not the same. And it is.

Embracing Contentment

Alice Lundy2 Comments

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Kevin (my boyfriend who died in March) conveyed a contentedness I’ve rarely witnessed. Ok, sure, he screamed obscenities in traffic and don’t mess with his sales leads!

But in the mornings, he sat quietly with coffee and me. Sounds simple, but that’s not a comfortable setting for everyone. These days, quiet for many means on their phone or computer. For me, quiet is often writing or praying.

I’d forgotten how to just sit in peace and contemplation, without restlessness, resistance, chatter, or distraction. Kevin didn’t like it if I grabbed a book or a pen, or God forbid, my phone. He wasn’t into texting. He was an old fashioned guy, in that he used the phone to call and talk to people.

Often in the mornings, we talked. Occasionally, he prayed aloud for his sales days. He wasn’t trying to distance himself the way many of us do.

The cool thing about Kevin, among the thousands I could tell you, was his ability to be fully present.

We’ve come to let people off the hook for being on the phone, in a hurry, rushing to be somewhere, and never fully arriving.

Kevin arrived in his life. He liked where he landed. In the mornings, contentment shown on his face like the rising sun and the birds at the feeder, the ones he taught me to take an interest in.

Kevin wasn’t striving to impress or mentally manipulate me. He knew how to just be and allowed me to do the same.

It’s morning now. I’m at home. Without Kevin. I sit with my coffee, watch birds at his feeder, and embrace contentment in an imperfect life.

 

 

 

 

Reaching Out

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I will never be ok with people I love dying. Yes, I get the circle of life, growing from adversity, what doesn’t destroy me makes me strong, etc. Still, death stings.

My loved one is here; then he’s gone. I’m stuck on earth and regardless of what I believe about the beyond, the loss is unbelievable challenging. Every. Single. Time.

Still, it could be worse if there were words left unsaid or if too much time passed since connecting.

I do not live in fear. Ok, that’s a lie. I’m afraid anyone I love could die at any time. Death feels random, even if there’s a higher reason.

I don’t let fear control me. I recognize the reality. I take steps to ensure should my loved ones die, I won’t endure regret alongside grief. Grief is enough.

My boyfriend Kevin died in March. Of all the people who attended his services, I didn’t hear one say he hadn’t reached out. Kevin reached out. He kept in contact with people. He called everybody. He sent Valentine’s Day and Christmas cards.

I don’t pretend I could, would, or should emulate him. I’m not that much of a people person. Still, I have my people. If something happened to another, where would I stand?

Regret isn’t a place I want to go. So, I’m going to my people, the ones I haven’t seen in too long, the ones I’d regret not having reached out to if today was their last day.

I spent the last few days with my stepsister Emily and her family. I hadn’t seen her since 2014 and that was only for 24 hours on my way home from Australia. Her life is busy, but she made space for me. Maybe because I asked. I got on a plane from Columbus, OH to Southern California.

We had a girls’ day complete with Bloody Marys, tears and conversations about my great love and loss—the one she never got to meet. We talked family, politics, God and the Bible. I got to know her kids as individuals and love them a little deeper. I pray Emily lives long past the day I depart this world, but if by chance something happens, I have those moments and the reconnection my heart required.

There were people Kevin and I intended to visit together, people I wanted to meet him and wanted him to meet. My stepsister Emily was one of those, as is my friend Nicole.

I’m going to see her at the end of October. I can’t control everything. (Obviously.) So, I make choices to see people, connect, and minimize the chance of regret. Sometimes someday doesn’t come.

I try not to let that scare me so much as make me aware of all that’s important: things I want to do and people I want to see. This is the time. Like an insurance policy against regret.

Life will change. People will die. Let me cherish and act in acceptance of all that, even though I’ll never be ok with my loved ones dying.