Being with It All
The joy. The grief. The in-between.
My mother, who I loved beyond words, has moved on from this life, and I am left sitting here, asking myself, What am I feeling?
I feel a searching. A wondering how life will be now. One of the closest allies in my life is no longer here. Life has changed.
I find myself wondering, as I move through my day, where is my mom? At night, I dream I’m looking for her and can’t find her. There's a liminal space — here, the other side, and everything between. There is so much to witness around us, I’ve found, if we look. I’ve spent the last 26 years seeing the spirit world come and go, weave around me in real time and give me guidance.
How do we move forward with grief that is inescapable? A stranger said, about losing her mother, that she hoped she could shake off the grief. If only it were that easy. Yes, I want my grief to deepen me and open me more. I also want it to go away. It’s hard to describe, grief – thick, ever-present, elusive, fleeting. The words are many and new for me to feel and try to name.
We move forward by choosing what is life-giving. Life-nurturing. Staying open to depth – intimacy with God, the divine, the unnamable. The oneness with all that is here, now. Breathing in. Breathing out. When experiences don't feel resonant, staying in right relationship anyway. Kindness always wins. Being the sky, even when the storms move through. Opening into a bigger container. Holding everything — sadness, joy, love — that is the spiritual practice.
It’s finding a hearty laugh and letting it out. I still laugh thinking about the deal I made with my mom — she wasn't allowed to die while I was on vacation. We shook on it. Then she died anyway. Who's really in control? Was it her choice? God's choice?
I ponder the question, and a clarity moves through me: I wasn't meant to see her go. It unfolded exactly as it was meant to. Julian of Norwich, the 13th-century mystic, gave us words I've held for years: All shall be well. She wrote them living through plague and unrest.
Moving through each day, I hold it all. One day at a time. Small moments feel richer now. Fuller. More precious, more alive. The rhythm of music lands on a deeper level. Birds singing in the morning. Clouds and rays of light streaming down with more intensity than I remember. Nature is alive. I feel it with every sense.
A room that always had someone in it now sits empty. I sit with the loss, the mystery, the knowing that she is still here, just on the other side. In a dream, she comes and says, I'm okay. I'm at peace. I'm with dad. I miss you.
Living into a new normal is its own spiritual terrain — different from acute grief, quieter, and harder to name, because nobody sends flowers for it. The missing becomes part of the architecture, like a support beam. Not gone. Not front and center every day, either. Just there, holding weight quietly.
Living on the threshold — the space between what was and what's next. I know this space intimately, from sitting with others inside it for twenty years. Now I'm sitting inside it myself.
Being in the body. Holding everything. Opening into each moment — the wisdom that's here, the guidance that's here, the other side interfacing with us all day long. I see spirits around me, and I find myself focusing in to see if one of the faint outlines of the spirits I see is mom. Enchanting moments that arise when we're simply still, and present.
A calling to open even deeper. Dropping into the love that is already here. God's love — filling the heart, flooding the soul. Feeling into the consciousness where separation dissolves, and we are one.
