I am still not over this, so be patient and don’t expect any fast road to recovery

I am tired tonight. but I feel compelled to say this- my grief is long and hard and ongoing. I am not done. I don’t know when this will be.  Actually, let me rephrase this- I may never get over this loss.  I am not asking for any special treatment or acknowledgment.  None at all.  I simply want my friends to know that I am forever changed.  I am cracked wide open. I am completely incapable of having a hard shell anymore. I have no armor on. I am soft and supple to any emotion and pain. I am vulnerable.  But not in the way that you may think. I am functioning okay. I am working, guiding, communicating, directing, organizing. but I am also not pretending to be someone I am not.  What you see is what you get.  I may be quiet, I may observe. I may be loud, I may be alert.  But one thing I will not be is inauthentic.  I am me. and  that means I am accepting all of me more than I ever have before. all my wounds, insecurities, and defects.  I won’t condemn myself much anymore. What a tired useless dialogue that is.

Benjamin wants one thing for me. Just one- Self Love..  His passing has propelled me to look deeply at all that I shunned inside myself.  “No more”, he says,”No more”.  “Accept the darkness and when this takes hold,I am right here, mom, to hold this space of Loving Safety”.

As I walk this path of self forgiveness, the grief goes on- the missing, the longing, the tears.  yet,maybe through these unending tears,come rejuvenation of this weary soul.  This Soul that met Benjamin a lifetime ago- and knows without a doubt- that our rejoining can happen in any moment- in the center of my broken open Heart.

Love after Love

my boy's sacred memorial site, where healing takes place every time I go.

The time will come when,with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome.

and stay, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give Wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your Life.

( One of my favorite poems because it speaks to coming back Home to Myself)

This is unbearable sometimes

I just want to scream at the top of my lungs. I need to tell someone right now. I hope it is okay to share with all of  you-

I miss my boy so so so so much.,  It is unbearable in this moment.  I can’t believe I will never have him next to me again..  He was Goodness.  He was Kindness. He was  Unconditional Love and Acceptance.  He was Courage. He was Forgiveness.  He was  Perfection.

There is nothing I can do. Nothing I can fix.  This is permanent. All I can do is endure, endure, endure.

Life is going on, without my boy.  I am functioning at a fairly high capacity- working , mostly eating okay, mostly sleeping okay,  socializing now and again…and then WHAM!!!  I am on the ground, flailing in  my grief.  Humbled by the magnitude of my loss.  It has gotten to the time where I don’t share so much with friends.  They may make the assumption that I am moving through it.   They don’t know these quiet desperate moments of complete surrender.

There is the necessity of distraction and numbing- a little tv,  facebook, food, sweets,- all addictions that won’t kill me.  But then there is also the necessity of FEELING.  My heart knows that healing is through feeling.   Feeling all the huge massive wave of loss will ultimately quiet this mind.  It will ultimately rest my soul,  it will ultimately feed my hungry heart.

This is where I am at tonight- allowing the earthquake in my heart to register at the highest crest. No holding back, no stopping, no numbing, no distraction.Then I will crawl into bed, with a full and tender  heart,  This is where I will  find my deepest connection to my beloved Benjamin.  He is already there- patiently waiting for this busy mind to find its way back to him.