Check out my Guest Post over on University of Colorado’s Palliative Care Graduate Program

This morning I have the triple privilege of experiencing the blend of the elusive writer’s high, the honor of being published, and the deep satisfaction I get from continuing to share stories about my mom for the edification of others. This rewarding and rare combination is about my heart. I’m calling today Trifecta Tuesday!

The link to my guest post over on the University of Colorado’s Palliative Care Graduate Program blog is below but first, I want to tell you why I keep writing about my mom, death, and me (skip it if you wish and go straight down there to my published piece 😉 .

Why I Keep Writing About My Mom, Death and Me

Writing about my mother and me is about healing a deep part in my soul that I cannot adequately describe with words. Others have done it brilliantly:

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.

Aeschylus

Healing grief is not about “getting over it.” After any conscious energy spent towards healing our broken hearts there is no grand pronouncement granted: Walaah! You are healed my friend! Nope. That’s not how it works.

Once experienced, grief can never be cured. Healing is about learning to walk through life with grief.

Life is full of adventures and dark forests we travel through with our grief embedded in our DNA. Grief is ground in our skin, crammed under our fingernails, buried in every crack and crevice I won’t name. You cannot wash it away anymore than you can cure it.

Grieving simply changes as time goes by and thank goodness for nature’s grace. Eventually the thick, impenetrable fog that overwhelms us when a new loss occurs thins out and we can see sunshine and beauty again. We again see the bees crawling in the jasmine and smell the jasmine’s fragrant invitation. But the fog still exists, tucked away in hollers along the trail and, at times, appearing out of thin air, rising up from the Earth where the warmth of the sun had finally found its way back into our wounded hearts.

Healing grief is about experiencing sensual pleasure in life after loss while continuing to love and honor those who are no longer with us; whether it be our beloved humans, our furbabies who are as much a part of our heart family as anyone else, or the loss of a personal identity such as “daughter with mother who lives next door.”

If you are deep in the fog, lost in the dark forest of grief, keeping putting one foot in front of the other. If you are exhausted (cuz, yep, grief is powerful that way) then, lay down in the embrace of the Earth and take a rest. Acknowledge the truth that your deep pain is simply a manifestation of love. It is nature’s gift for being a compassionate loving being.

Why do I continue to write about it all? Because there’s a shitton of fog to walk through and writing helps me find the sunshine. And I crave Trifecta Tuedays.

Palliative Care and Medical Aid in Dying

For the first time, I wrote specifically about the relationship between palliative care and medical aid in dying for my mom. Check it out:

https://www.cuanschutz.edu/graduate-programs/palliative-care/blog/palliative-care-blog/medical-aid-in-dying-was-palliative-care-for-my-mother

Grief is the price we pay for love.

Queen Elizabeth II

As always, thank you for gracing my life with your presence.

Image by Valiphotos from Pixabay

If you’d like to read more about me and my mom’s story, you might like these posts:

• Things to Expect When Your Mother Dies – #92 Quilting
• Another Thing to Expect When Your Mother Dies – A Year Later – Life is But a Breath
• My Conversation about Medical Aid-in-Dying in California – Listen to community radio KVMR 89.5 Embracing the Journey Podcast with Lori Burkhart Frank