Grief. It’s meant to be shared.

I recently ran into an old friend and her parents at a farm-to-form joint out in the back countryside of Northwestern Wisconsin (i’ll have to write an entire post about the magic Mariah and Tommy are weaving out at Dancing Yarrow at a later date. Iykyk.). Her dad recognized me immediately and greeted me with the warmest hug. He grew up with my dad, knew my mom from the community kitchen’s he actively volunteered at for years, and saw me grow up alongside his daughter. Enjoying the Wisconsin skies, countryside, and some live music - we got to talking. He asked about my mom and I had to break the news to him.

It’s weird, years after the fact, having to break the news to someone who knew my mom that she has passed. Witnessing him react to my words as they roll of my tongue as he considers them carefully. He sighs heavily and offers me the warmest gaze of sympathy that nearly causes me to choke on tears rising from the depths of my bones.

He confided in me that he had lost both his parents in a tragic car accident on Homecoming night when he was in high school. He recalled the experience with tears swelling over crystal blue eyes, and I could see that teenage boy in his heartbreak. My whole body warmed and I could feel the tears rising behind my eyes when he looked at me…

“…ya know, I wouldn’t change anything. The things I’ve learned…” he trails off, because he sees I understand.

“smoke em if ya got em” he said with a smirk.

I let out a laugh…my mom would like that one. It’s how she lived her life, anyway. She’d appreciate him. He's an old-timer. One who wears the wisdom of the life he’s lived in a full, white beard that hangs effortlessly off his face and eyes that could light the darkest room. He carries himself well and, for his late 70s, has a youthfulness about him. And here we were, sitting in the grass, surrounded by laughter and sunshine, sharing grief like old friends share secrets.

There are only a few certainties in life. Death, like it or not, is one of them. None of us make it out of here alive. Now, there are some of us who have made it pretty far in life avoiding significant loss and trauma. Some might call them the lucky ones. But, i’m not so sure. Those of us who have become intimate with grief know it’s potent medicine and alchemic potential. The transfer of energy between Now, i don’t recommend we all go seeking grief as some spiritual pursuit of ascension, but when you grief becomes you, a doorway to a new way of experiencing the world becomes open to you. There are many of us, like me, on the other side of that door, ready to hold you.

Because grief is a shared human experience, and meant to be experienced fully, shared whole-heartedly, and in community. It’s a profound opportunity for deep connection.

When my mom passed away in February of 2017 and it shook me to my core, disorganizing everything I thought I knew about myself and life. To say it cracked me open is an understatement. But in that despair, i discovered something else: an expanded sense of self, which is the main theme of my debut poetry collection, sun-soaked shadows, which is set to be released in 2024. In an instant, I was opened to new network of connections of others who experienced similar grief.

There’s a kinship. an understanding. an unspoken connection. an indescribable bond. a club no one wants to belong to, but are happy to find there are other members when do.

let me be clear. You are NOT your grief, but your grief is forever part of you, moving within you at every moment. At times is rises to the surface and demands to be experienced and expressed but mostly, it’s an undercurrent. It can be felt even in great stillness. It lives beneath the surface. For those living with grief is like looking upon a slow moving river and knowing that there are pockets of current that can sweep us under and kick us around. It doesn’t stop us from swimming or stepping foot into the river, but it can certainly sweep you up. Connecting with someone of a shared grief is like two rivers merging, currents ever-flowing as predictable as the wind. You can either fight the current or let is carry you to new shores.

Those new shores are waiting with arms outstretched for you to spill your grief onto. Give it to the sand. Let it pour out of you and onto the land to be held. Allow it to be cleansed hearts of others like medicine for the soul. Your story is meant to be shared. Grief is meant to be shared.

It’s alchemy for powerful transformation. I’m here for it. I really don’t have any other choice but to fully surrender to the waves of grief as they roll over me like ocean tides. And when I do, I’m carried by the divine hands of the sea, which carry me to new shores of my soul. It’s these’s shores I share with you.