ST Healing Love-IntoBalance October2022 - Flipbook - Page 24
Communal
When we gather with people in our grief, that grief can be about our regrets for what we have been or
not been in relationship with others; how we may have harmed others; how others may have harmed us
or others we hold dear. The process of working through communal grief requires us to come outside of
ourselves and grieve with others.
I am grieving the way Parkinson’s is slowly stealing my father’s ability to
talk. While I was growing up he didn’t express his love verbally. He was always
a jokester, and so you knew he loved you if he took the time to tease you. As
I’ve gotten older and we’ve both engaged in our own healing work, sometimes
being in ceremony together, he’s started telling me he loves me, and opening up
to me with some of his own struggles. Now, with the Parkinson’s escalating,
when I visit, he prefers to watch TV. I am grieving what feels like the end of
our deepening relationship. I am grieving the book we never wrote together, the
places we didn’t get to visit. But most of all, I feel a huge lump in my throat that
is full of most sorrow and gratitude that I am witnessing the withering of his
expression of life. He has always been my role model, the person who connected
me to my ancestors, who taught me that another word is possible, who showed
me how to observe and honor nature, and who always reminded me the purpose
of an education was to give back to one’s community. I think the blessing of a
terminal illness is it gives you and your loved ones time to start the grieving
process even before you have actually passed away.
—Rosa
Grieving for his own abuse when he was a child. Post death, the
work of healing still happens.
As in the words of Mickey ScottBey Jones Invitation to
Brave Space, “we all carry scars and we’ve all caused
wounds…” Somehow, we have gotten good at hiding
our places of hurt, self perceptions of inadequacy,
feelings of being imposters in our own lives.
Anger shows up when it’s not
safe to be sad. Anger protects
the sacred place for grief. If
there’s not enough safety
there, the grief doesn’t come.
24
Healing Love: Into Balance