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Please join me on a journey from grief to surrender, from fear to empowerment, from uncertainty to.... uncertainty. 
"When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life."  ​
~Eckhart Tolle

Grief, resistance, and surrender -- a comparison over time

6/28/2015

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PicturePhoto: Tibetan Buddha, Shambhala Mountain Center, May 2015 (location of second post)
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."

***********************
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.
********************

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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    Joanne Chang is a writer, mother, widow and movement-maker.  She lives in Denver, CO.

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