Grief is reworking me; I’ve grieved this summer. The main event was that my father died, swiftly. Though in hindsight, I can see now the signs were there that he was leaving. Both of my parents became severely sick at the end of May with what we suspect was Covid, and they both suffered. Mom got well but Dad never recovered fully, and confusion crept into his psyche. He experienced dizziness and fell a few times. Dad’s blood pressure read unusually low. Still, he adamantly kept up his daily walking routine each day. He was surviving.
We thought it must be long Covid symptoms that he was experiencing. Now we know: Cancer had metastasized throughout his body. We did not know he had cancer. This all came out so quickly that once we got the diagnosis, he went straight to hospice, and my family scrambled to rearrange our lives for the sudden event of his death. My mother, sister, and I held a rotating vigilance 24/7. My father died a brief week later.
When people ask now how I’m doing, “reorienting” is the word that arises from my heart. Losing a parent feels like missing a navigational marker. I spend a lot of time boating on tidal waters where I live and so I’m thinking specifically of the navigational markers in the river, the ones placed by the Coast Guard. You turn a corner, expecting the marker to guide you through the deep water, broadcasting the dangers of oyster beds and sandbars. Only, now the marker’s not there. You must find your way through alone. Dad’s death feels like losing what was steadfast and reliable. The marker has been pulled up.
Reorientation, at first, feels like looking around for something, anything, to grip and hold onto as a life raft to carry one into this new way of being. It means surfacing into the realization that there’s nothing to hold onto except for the feeling that swells inside of us that we call Love. And while my grief may be personal, I’m seeing loss everywhere lately. It seems that a way of life is going and we are in the place of reorientation as a collective. Our world is changing. The Earth is changing. People are changing.
The pain of the physical loss is palpable.
Nature’s message is to keep going. Nature never gives up.
I’ve noticed a human tendency is to want to fix things into place and to try to control outcomes. That’s not how nature operates; we are biological beings. Maybe, in our collective grief, we can reorient ourselves to this flux of life, to the incoming and outgoing, the inhale and exhale, the day to night, the birth to death, and the cycle that continues. The cycle that is the only constant that ever was. Love is our life raft to stay buoyant in the cycle of life.
I’m accepting the cycles. I’m accepting what nature presents.
The cycle right now for me is of summer heat and humidity. The cycle is of school starting back, and the highs and lows that come with guiding my teenager through adolescence. Grief is a cycle too, one where a now-fatherless version of myself emerges wiser and fiery from this experience, like a Phoenix.
you can read the obituary that I wrote for my father here.
Five tips for moving through grief
Janisse Ray wrote a fantastic article on techniques for nervous system regulation that inspired me to compose my own list of tips. Grief triggers our Sympathetic Nervous System’s (SNS) response. Our SNS is our “fight or flight” response and results in a surplus of the stress hormone, cortisol, in our bodies.
Below are the things I’ve been doing to shift my body’s SNS state to a more healing Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) response. The PNS is responsible for our “rest and digest” state of being. Here’s what I do each day:
1. Breathwork, daily breathwork. For the week following my father’s death, I felt like I could not breathe and that there was something heavy sitting on my chest. We often carry grief in our lungs, so this makes sense.
I needed to breathe deeply. Many of us don’t know how to breathe properly for our bodies and cannot take deep, diaphragmatic breaths, or “belly breaths” as they are called in yoga sometimes. Many of us have patterned our breath into the upper chest only. I promise that if this describes you, simply changing to diaphragmatic breathing will change your life. You will be more relaxed and happier.
Breathe with Sandy is a favorite YouTube channel to explore a breathwork practice. I just scroll through his videos each day, pick something, and do my best.
Also, if you haven’t read James Nestor’s book Breath : The New Science of a Lost Art, I recommend it for the amazing information.
2. I’m following the thing that brings me joy. I’m allowing myself to be curious and follow what gets my attention. I’m learning and taking deep dives. After Dad died, I was in a funk for about a week that I couldn’t shake until I went on a walk and noticed a flower. A little purple wildflower that looked a lot like a butterfly pea flower that I like to drink as a tea. Sure enough, as I followed that curiosity, I discovered it’s a native butterfly pea called Centrosema virginianum, or Spurred butterfly pea. I began seeing them everywhere. And that curiosity lit a little spark that came back to lift me from my melancholy.
3. I drink daily herbal infusions. I feel so nourished by herbs and plants. Our bodies need physical support and herbal medicine works with our bodies. I’ve written about this before, so I know you’re familiar. But the deeper and deeper I dive into the phenology of plants, I can see how luminosity is in everything that is life-giving, and of life. Most of our food systems belong to the fallen world; when we eat closer to the Earth, just as our ancestors did, we are ingesting that luminosity for support of our physical, magnificent bodies. I post a lot of my daily herbal infusions on Instagram, so you can follow along there as I like to share what I learn.
3. I’m writing. Writers, artists, and those who choose creative endeavors make meaning out of experiences. We are weavers this way. Nothing is lost, everything is significant. We as humans are always being communicated with by spirit, God—whatever your name is for the luminosity that runs through everything. When we weave our experiences together and find great meaning by making art, this luminosity has a place to shine and be seen by those who can’t yet see.
5. I’m Meeting Life Where It Is. This one may be a little bit harder to put into words. I’m talking about acceptance here. I gained some weight this summer. It’s okay. Along with all my herbs, I ate plenty of ice cream too. It brought me some temporary joy, and the sweetness helped to combat the heat and grief. I also let my garden go midsummer because the hot weather and weeds began to overwhelm me and I was at the hospital anyway. It’s okay. I pulled up most everything last week from my garden and am slowly prepping my beds for fall. Gone are all the big ambitions for the fall, but I’m not giving up. I’ll keep going. I’m simply reorienting my life.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
~Wendell Berry
thank you for reading. I may have more typos than usual in this post. It’s okay. xo Katie
Beautiful and more than okay, Katie. I’m sorry about your loss. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.
So much love to you Katie. Nothing really prepares one for the loss of a parent. “Reorienting” is such a good word. In Qigong they also talk about grief being held in the lungs.