“Grieving is a privilege – the price of loving someone – and it doesn’t have to include suffering.” – Me

Pain is like a small, fragile chick. It wants attention and requires nurturing. It lets us know there is a soft space in our hearts that needs exploration. It calls for an expansion of our awareness and surrender to what is.

The pain of my divorce in many ways prepared me for the pain of losing my father two weeks ago. I now know that grief is not linear. It rolls in and out like the ocean’s tides, sometimes gentle and sometimes violent in nature.

Before, I would hide with the blinds closed and pretend it wasn’t knocking. Now, I have learned to be kind to my grief. “Come in,” I tell it. “I’ve been expecting you.”

With each recognition, with each allowance, I am healed slowly, fiber by fiber. The soreness lessens with each fond memory that acts as a soothing caress. The hollowness is filled by grace and compassion, gifts and flowers, generosity and immense kindness. Here I find peace where I didn’t know I was seeking it.

Luckily, there is no “should” when it comes to grieving.

I am not a sufferer – I see the silver lining before the cloud appears. So while I am acknowledging the deep loss – as my daily, hot, salty tears can attest to – I am simultaneously continuing to step into who I was created to be.

I will not stop living – I will honor my dad’s death with my joy-filled life.

This is all part of my evolution.

Surrender. Accept. Allow. Repeat.

[Photo: My dad and I at Disneyland when I was 7 or 8 years old.]