A friend of mine from grad school…LISA LEAHEY….is now a two-time inspiration to this blog of mine. This woman is about to embark on an amazing career as a speaker and author (with a little counseling on the side) because she has an ability to get to the point, the actual point, in an instant. We were chatting today about a speaking opportunity and got side tracked, and ended up talking about my blog. Then she made the astute point that if my blogs were starting to have a theme, I should embrace that, not run away from it. Theme in our lives can lead to having a specialty!
But my recurring blog theme is GRIEF! Let’s face it, grief is not something that one wants to run into the arms of, on a regular basis. As humans, we want to avoid grief and we long for carefree moments and happier times. Are you are like me? I plan vacations as much for the anticipation of the relaxation and the escape, as the event itself. Choosing to embrace grief seems unnatural and wrong. Grief is scary and emotional, but a part of our lives, nonetheless. Planning a vacation isn’t going to take that away.
I have blogged about the loss of parents and loved ones, the loss of relationship, and the loss of health. And yet, all this blogging did not protect me from the loss of a friend just a couple weeks ago now. Oddly enough, my friend Shelly Dana was the heartbreak I felt when I posted during October, Breast Cancer Awareness month. She was taken by that cancer just a couple of days after Christmas this year and I find myself grieving yet again. And because I cannot help myself, I am analyzing the loss, so that I can offer the experience to those I serve as a counselor. It is different than the others…it is the same and different, all at the same time.
The obvious part of losing my funny, adventurous, smart, beautiful and spiritual friend is that I will not get to spend time with her again on this earth. She always made ME feel funny, adventurous, smart, beautiful and spiritual when I was with her so I am going to miss that kumbaya-ness that Shelly brought to our gatherings. But there is more…there is much more…that makes this complicated.
We were “couple” friends too and our times with our husbands and our other couple friends were filled with laughter, freedom and discussions about politics and religion. The dynamic won’t be the same now. There will be an empty chair and moments when we all think to ourselves, “Shelly would have said or done this, right about now….” We will all behave a little bit differently without her thoughtful and humorous insights. For me, there is an awareness that we shared a diagnosis for a time and there might be something to be learned from her example of how to live fully, in the moment and her willingness to connect people from her different walks of life. Finally, I am acutely aware at how many people might feel less funny, adventurous, smart, beautiful and spiritual, with her gone.
Shelly’s enduring husband, Chris, shared emotional and poignant parts of their journey with the huge congregation that gathered to memorialize Shelly and in those moments, I was reminded of the impact that one family’s suffering has on a community. As I sat among, literally hundreds of folks that loved Shelly and her family, our common thread was the loss of her life. We were all suffering together and somehow that togetherness made the loss bearable. We did not have to explain to one another the pain we were feeling. It was understood.
And there it is. Being understood. That is what we all long for. That is the reason that people seek my services and what I have been trained to offer. Honestly, most of us do not need someone to fix our problems, we just want to know that there is a togetherness that makes it bearable. We want to gather the strength, through human interaction, to fix the problem ourself. We want to be reminded of the life tools we have in our belt and be reminded of the warrior spirit within us. It is the reason that the hurt goes deep when we share our troubles with a friend or family member and they give a blank stare or offer a trite response. Ya know, Shelly and I had big plans to write a book together about the funny (or not so funny) things that people say when they find out you have cancer. We exchanged stories that you had to be there to believe, and in those moments, I remember feeling that I could endure because she understood the frustration and hurt I felt. Not only could I endure, we could laugh, find the humor and use the energy to carry on.
So today I choose to embrace my life circumstances which have allowed me to experience grief and loss, so that I can better understand other humans who struggle with the loss of loved ones, lost hopes and dreams and the grief that comes as a result. I hope that I too, like my friend Shelly, can sit with those who grieve and give them a sense of being understood so that they can find motivation to begin again.
Sonia Nelson
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720.449.2235