​It’s amazing to me how my mind still, after 15 months, does not understand that George is dead.  He is dead, Jo!  He died.  You saw him dead.  His body without a George inside.  

What is it about Death that is so hard for my mind to grasp?  Is this a human condition, a cultural ineptitude, or my own personal denial?  I do not know how to hold my life with George, and my life after George, in the same hand.  I do not know how to see George’s life, and his death, in the same view.  When one seems real, the other seems illusory.  ​

​But they both exist.  I need to understand this, and my mind does not know how.

Perhaps it is not for my mind to understand.  When I found myself closest to the truth, closest to making sense of it all, I was at Shambhala Mountain Center in the Colorado Rockies and it was not my mind that made the pen move, that brought those words and ideas and understanding into the light.  I simply began writing, not knowing what was going to fall on the page, not using my mind to make the words appear, but simply being present with the moment, allowing whatever needed to move through me, to come forth and be known.  

It was not my mind.  It was something transcendent.  Perhaps it was my soul.  Perhaps it was George’s soul.  Perhaps it was the clear, calm, knowing voice of the universal consciousness that descended upon my human form that evening.  And for a moment in time, I knew.  I understood.  It all made beautiful perfect glorious sense.  

        George is here.  He is not gone, he is not dead.  I miss his beautiful body, but I have so much more of him now.  He, in fact, is so much more than he was when he was alive.  He has evolved and become pure light.  He has become the great Teacher he was always meant to be.  His death was his evolution, and mine.  It was our evolution.  Our awakening.

        George and I have known each other for a very long time.  We have been in love before this lifetime, and we have been separated.  We fundamentally understand the dance between this human existence and the flight of the soul.  The death of his body, this separation we are experiencing, is simply part of the plan, part of our work.  We are helping each other discover the Truth.

There was more, but I’ll spare you, for now.  That voice stayed with me for several weeks.  

I began telling people about it, because it was so consuming that any other answer to the question, “How are you?” would have been inauthentic and pointless.  As I’d hear myself tell our story, my rational mind would judge me and tell me I sounded crazy and delusional.  But I couldn’t hold it in.  It was too powerful.  Simultaneously I experienced abdominal pain, nausea, hot flashes, dizziness, headaches.  It felt like I was having some sort of spiritual awakening.  

I realized that I could continue following this path of spiritual wonderment and embrace the glory of understanding the death of the body and the immortality of the soul and teach of love and its infinite gifts, and how we are not bound to experiencing love in only this human form, but how love continues on, how our relationships continue on, long after we are dead… and I saw myself diving into this intriguing new world, never to return.

But then I made a choice.  I returned to my human experience.  Because I had not yet allowed myself to grieve for George, and I had not yet fallen to pieces, and I had not yet cried my heart out.  I had only been coping with his absence, learning to be a mother, and trying to return to school and resume a life.  I had not yet had the time or space to feel the depths of sadness that come with losing the human being you valued above all others in this life.  

I asked George, and the universe, for some space.  To allow me to be human, to allow me to feel the pain.  I wanted to make sure I’d done it, so I could fully participate in whatever came next.  

So I went, and I grieved.  Then I came back, and asked for George to join me.  
George, I am ready for you now!  Let’s do this!
Silence.

George?  Hey, I’m ready to receive your teachings.  I’m ready to embark on our new relationship.  Please come.
Nothing.
Hmm.
George!!

Day after day, life continues and I plod along on my human experience.  I have big decisions to make about the year ahead, I have my child to care for, and things feel heavy.  This is the point, I think, when I am supposed to start moving forward.  But I can’t find George.  He, in his new enlightened form, is supposed to come with me.  We are supposed to be doing this together.  But right now, I only see him in my past, and I cannot bear to leave him there.

I have wondered if I should not have stepped away from him in the first place.  Why did I feel the need to interfere?  To have my human experience of pain and suffering?  How could that be more appealing?  

But that is what I did, and therefore it had to be done.  

​I know that George will come back to me when he feels I am ready for him.  I know I have not lost him, not really.  But maybe…  I’ll be more careful, the next time I ask for space.  And perhaps my mind will never be able to understand death.  But my soul knows.

These two journal entries were written 5 days apart, illustrating grief’s constant ebb and flow, the impermanence of any one emotion, and the myriad of feelings that arise when a loved one dies, including heartbreak, anger, guilt, shame, gratitude, hope, acceptance, shock, confusion, fear, loneliness, and many many more.  In short, grief makes you feel crazy.

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March 1, 2015
I am tired today but still feeling grounded in life/George/death and still feeling calm.  God, I miss you George, so much so much.  I would do anything to hold you, to see you hold and giggle with your daughter, who is one insanely beautiful and amazing human.  We really made a magical creature and the world is a better place because Nova is in it.  She brings so much joy to people’s lives with the power of her smile.

I know you are not here with us, at least not in the physical sense.  I know you are somehow a part of the greater consciousness though, that you have awareness of my continued existence and of Nova’s existence; that you love and care for us and want to protect us.  I know you wish us love and joy and happiness, and I feel...I hope...you are at peace.  I am getting there.  

It’s a challenge to reconcile the life I just had, that I remember so vividly, so recently, with this new life without you.  I feel like a very different person now, and in many ways I can’t relate to the woman who married you and carried your child.  She was spoiled and privileged and sheltered and blind.  She was self-involved and self-interested and took what she had -- the fortune of love, partnership, a future family -- for granted.  She was afraid, but not of anything real.  She was petty.  I am still some of these things, but I sure have a greater appreciation for the present moment and what is good that exists now.  Impermanence is constantly on my mind.  I really wish I’d been able to be happier when I had everything in the world that I could possibly want.  I wish I’d worried less and played more and put my self interests aside to love you more.  Because you really deserved to be loved.  I wish I’d been more attentive and less absorbed in my own dramas.  I wish… I’d really really really known how fortunate I was to have it ALL.

And, I guess the thing is that I do still have it all -- a beautiful healthy happy child, a warm, safe and cozy home, a supportive family and community, wonderful neighbors, my own health, my own perseverance and will and strength to continue this journey…
Jeffrey says I’m doing all this with a lot of grace.  I hear that a lot actually.  I don’t really feel graceful, I told him, in fact I feel like I'm fumbling through this; but there must be that quality in the way I interact with the world, somewhere down the line I learned to live gracefully.  It’s coming in handy these days.


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March 6, 2015
Wow.  This journey is f***ing crazy.  I just read what I wrote last, and … the guilt!  I have so much guilt about not loving George well enough, but I DID love him well, I loved him very well, and I cherished him completely and did everything I could to make him feel loved and secure and wanted.  I always told him he was the one for me, that I loved him to pieces and was so happy to have found him.  I told him how lucky I felt, how lucky Nova was to have him for a father.  I don’t know what I really wish I’d done better, other than… well… I didn’t always feel amazing because I didn’t always feel complete.  I still don’t feel complete.  But that has nothing to do with George and everything to do with me.  My lack of security does not mean I loved him any less than 200%.  Because I did, George.  I do.  I love you 200% to infinity.  I know you knew this and still know this.

I came upon this photo last night at Toast & Michelle’s wedding, and it just killed me.  He looks so solid and happy and peaceful.  So REAL, like I could reach out and touch him.  And just like that, I’m thrown back into a state of WTF?!?!?  Spinning again, not comprehending this loss, holding George’s ashes and not knowing how or why he’s gone.  He was just here.  And now he is in a box on my lap.

Suddenly my life makes no sense.  My past seems illusory.  Or too real for the present to also be real.  How can my past and present both be true?  How can this life change so explosively and leave me holding a box of ash?  Just like that, the calm quiet period I’d had, vanished.

I am back to -- um, no, I don’t get it.  Where is George?  He was real, right?  I really knew him, I really loved him, what we had was so real and SO GOOD, how could it be over?  Life just came and took him away from me, just stole him from my morning sleep.  I kissed him goodbye one morning and then he was gone forever.  Yes, I believe I have a right to be angry.  Angry at life.  Angry at death.  Angry because it f***ing hurts and there is no one to blame.  There is no one to hold me through this, not really.  I am the strong one.  I am the mama.  I am creating every way possible for me to move on with my life but I am leading this charge and there is no one beside me, shoulder to shoulder.  I am carrying my daughter.  I am carrying my husband’s ashes.  I have support but they all look to me to tell them what to do.  I do not know what to tell you!  I need help but the truth is, you can’t help me in the way that I need it, because you are in charge of a different life, your own.  What I need is someone to share in the responsibility of my life with my daughter, and there is no one who can do that.  Everyone has their own life to live.  So, I lead this life, and Nova’s life, by myself.  And I grieve for George.  And my heart screams for him.  My heart is SO BROKEN, it is so so broken.  
And I feel crazy because he is dead but I feel he is real.

Somehow I am supposed to continue to feel his love without his words or touch or physical presence.  I am supposed to just know by feeling, sensing, believing that he is all around me and that he loves me.  This is faith, I suppose.  Is this George religion?  Ugh.  Haha.  Honestly.  I do not know how to survive this.  I am tired.

Nova being out of the house brings me back to the time before she was born.  The house suddenly feels like it used to, without her presence here.  Like George is out and I am home alone… except he is not out, he is dead.  Holy f***.

It’s amazing, really, how I keep my shit together for Nova.  I’ve lost it several times in the last hour and it’s only because she is not here.  I don’t know how much emotion I’ve contained inside because I don’t have the space to let it out.  I find it so hard to cry in front of her and to sob hard, to make those fixed painful faces that your face just makes when you cry really hard -- I don’t want to scare her!  She is so happy and smiley and innocent.  Why introduce such misery and sadness?
But oh, I really need more space -- more than zero -- to cry and release and let it all flow out.  There is so much.  It’s like a war zone in there.

I am posting two journal entries, one from 8/11/4, and one from 5/7/15, written nine months apart.  It's interesting for me to see the progression, the differences, the similarities.  And it's important to note that grief is in no way linear.  I bounce from one spectrum to the other, from resistance to surrender and everything in between, quite often.  But as I move forward, I find that the extremes are less so, and I try not to push anything away.  I try not to resist the resistance -- the sadness, the anger, the fear -- as much as I want to hang onto the acceptance, the love, the gratitude.  I try not to attach to any emotion or story and let it all be.  It can be excruciating, and utterly exhausting, but this is the way through.  As Rumi wrote, "The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

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August 11, 2014.  Monday.

Last night I cried.  Hard.  I looked in the bathroom mirror and saw my sad, sad face, and cried and cried.  I needed to see it, my sad ugly face.  I needed to see the pain I was in, to feel it deeply, to let it sink in just a little bit more.  I found a video of George from before I knew him, at his pirate birthday.  He looked so sweet and young and beautiful… and it broke my heart.  I asked for him to come into my dreams last night, and he did… I only remember I was sitting across from him and he was talking, and I was trying to pay close attention to the way his mouth moved.  For some reason, ever since he died, I’ve had trouble remembering him vividly.  As if I’ve erased all the details of his face from my memory, and can only experience him as a feeling now.  It’s kind of driving me crazy.

This morning I cried more.  God damn, I miss him and cannot believe he’s gone.  I don’t want this!!!!!!!  I want to go back in time, I want to see him, I want to rewrite the last 3 weeks.  It’s been 3 weeks since things were normal.  3 weeks since he worked from home, and we walked down to Miss Saigon for pho at lunchtime, and went to Park Burger for dinner that night.  3 weeks since I went to bed and (eventually) my love crawled in next to me.  3 weeks since he wore that green lion/lemon shirt that I will never wash.  

Oh my goodness.  I am beyond heartbroken.  
I am so fucking sad.  
This cannot be real life.
My life was so, so, so good.  I knew I had it all.  And now, I feel so empty, so lost, so without.
My love is dead.

George, my love, my light, you will always be my one true love.
I don’t want to say goodbye.  Ever.
Do I have to?
You are supposed to be everywhere.  But I only know you by your face, your shining eyes, your smile, your warmth.  This spirit thing is so hard to grasp.
I need you.  To hold me.  To comfort me.
Show me you are here.  Show me you still love me.  I am questioning everything.

Was it real?  Were we real?  Am I real?
Why did you love me?
Did I love you well enough?
Did you truly know how much I adored you?

You say we are doing this together from different places, but I feel I need you here, with me, in the same place.  
I know I do not have that choice.
It is so, so heartbreaking.
Love stories are not supposed to end this way.

You say our love story is not over.  
It is transformed, it is growing, it is becoming something greater.  Greater than all of us.
I say I need your arms to hold me, your lips to kiss me, your voice to say “I Love You”.
But your arms, your lips, your voice… are ashes now.  Burned like everything impermanent. 
How will you show your love… How should I show mine… How do we navigate this new love story… ?

I don’t know how to do this.
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May 7, 2015.  Thursday.
There is a tiny beacon of light, some inner understanding or soul wisdom, peeking through the darkness that helps me to see that George's death is not the end of anything, but just a part of our never-ending story.  In some ways, this is the beginning, we are still at the beginning; we still have so much to learn and discover together, so much joy to share through our hearts and minds and souls, so much to share through Nova.  George to this day does not feel dead, and it's because he is not dead.  His body is no longer the vessel with which he experiences the world, or with which I experience him.  But he is so, so alive.  So alive in everything I experience, so present in me.  In fact, he is more present in me than he has ever been.  He is always with me, and not merely as a thought, but as the force with which I move through the world, the arms of my heart embracing this life, the legs of my soul leading me forward to become my highest self.  He is, as he has always been, my Teacher.  He is immortal.  He can no longer be physically separated from me.  He is my strength and my power, my light and my love. 

He is not Dead, and I will no longer say that he died.  What do I say then?  He.... passed on?  ....transitioned?  ...became one with the beat of the Universe and is helping me become more beautiful and more amazing than I ever imagined I could be?  Truly.  You are making me into one incredible human, George III.  You are doing this with me, and together we are an incredible team, as always and even more so than before.  Wow.  Epiphany.  The tiny light just became Huge.

We used to look at each other and laugh like silly kids at how ridiculous our life was, our love, our bodies together, our deep satisfaction and contentment with each other, our wonder that we had found the thing, the treasure, the gold, that we never thought we would find.  We would recognize that it was hard to tell other people about our love without feeling shy because we had so much of what others only wanted to experience a little of.  We knew how fortunate we were. 

And the Truth is that we are still so fortunate, we still have our love, we still have the treasure.  It is not in the past, it is now; it is always.  We are One.  I am our vessel now.  Nova is our vessel.  We have not lost, rather we are constantly gaining.  We are a love that is more powerful and pure than ever before.  It is without pretense or expectation, without requirements or boundaries.  This is the love of a lifetime.  Beyond the lifetime.  The universal, eternal, infinite love.
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