With this fresh grief, love offers an invitation
How do we hold our becoming when our people aren't here to see it?
We were bumping along the dirt road in Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur, straining from our seats in the van to gaze out at the lagoon, where the heart-shaped spouts of grey whales could be seen from miles away. I was with my niece, four other adventurers and our expedition guide and his staff, having traveled to this remote part of Mexico for a one-of-a-kind encounter with these gentle giants, who migrate there from the Arctic seas every winter to mate and have their babies. It was our first day out to see them in Laguna Ojo de Liebre. As excited chatter filled the van, I suddenly caught snatches of Spanish floating toward me from the front.
Words and phrases had been coming back to me since I’d arrived in Mexico, years of rust falling off the Spanish I’d studied in college. I thought back to buying coffee earlier that morning, the more I’d yearned to say to the barista but held back with an awkward, fumbling tongue. Momentarily lost in that memory, I was surprised when I heard my dad's voice breaking through my reverie: "Dígame." It was among the many phrases he’d picked up during his years seeking medical care in Cuba. He would usually answer the phone this way when speaking to friends or colleagues from Havana — “Tell me.”
My dad lived in St. Lucia, where he died almost 10 years ago. But there he was, a presence, a poured warmth, beside me.
And seemingly out of nowhere, my eyes smarted with tears, the stunning vista of salt flats and blue skies dissolving around me. I swiped surreptitiously at the trails, marveling, for the millionth time, at how wonder and exhilaration, the brightest joy, can give way in an instant to a brilliant flash of grief.
Days later, strolling the beach in Bahia de los Ángeles, the morning sunlight dancing off the sea, my thoughts again turned to my dad, as I’ve made it a practice to invite him on walks with me. One of my favorite memories remains the last time we walked together back home. The sun was setting along Vigie Beach, and a quiet tenderness spooled between us, a reprieve from so much that ached to expressed. Now, I felt his presence, bright, buoyant. "Can you believe we're here?" I asked, a soft elation stirring in me. And this time when the tears came, they were happy tears because I sensed him beaming, jubilant in my gladness. Heard him whisper, "Yes, darling, yes. Keep loving. Love your life."
There have been other moments like this since my dad died. Times when his voice has found me with words I didn’t know I needed to hear, when the truth of our enduring connection fills my bones.
I remember my last day in Tanzania during my first trip there in 2015. Walking to Cradle of Love, a home for abandoned and orphaned babies, where I spent the afternoons cuddling the littlest ones after helping to care for and teach kids of all ages at a different orphanage in the mornings. It had been a long-held dream of mine to travel to Africa, to plant my feet on the soil of the motherland and be of service to children in need in some way. When I first shared this dream with my dad, he was skeptical, lukewarm, reaching for obstacles — the distance, the cost, the logistics of getting there. I was so disappointed I never brought it up with him again. Yet there I was almost three years after his death, living my heart’s calling.
I’d woken up that last day in tears, desperate to stay. Still, my heart in that moment, as I walked the dirt road to Cradle, felt vast, brimming, stretched by a love I’d never expected to find in the hugs, the laughter, the playful romps and teasing of all these children, “my children” I called them. And though my sadness was immense, so was my joy. After the death of my dad, after the breakup of a relationship, after leaving a job that had dismissed my talents, I’d come back to life here — sweet, vigorous, surging life.
As my footsteps quickened with that awareness and a smile cupped my face, I felt my dad at my side. Beaming. Proud. Beyond happy for the happiness I’d found, now that he’d surrendered his physical body and with it his doubts and fear. His love was palpable, a pulsing in the air around me as we lingered in that exchange, a father celebrating his daughter, a daughter receiving his pride and joy.
Sometimes one of the hardest things about emerging from the thick swamp of grief, from the months and years of acute longing and missing and struggling to find the ground beneath us, is the realization that we are no longer the person our loved one knew. Yes, there is an essence that remains, but grief changes us. We move through the world differently with values and perspectives that have shifted. Make choices we never would have made were it not for our harrowing walk with loss. We find love, start new jobs or careers, move, learn to speak up for ourselves, decide to delay nothing we yearn for, chart a course that takes us away from what we were doing, what we thought mattered when our person was still alive. We inhabit parts of ourselves awakened or cultivated on the long road to finding some place that feels like center.
And that can stir fresh layers of grief, to be living as someone our person will never know.
Yet while our grief will always be with us, and with it the wondering what they would do or think or say, the wishing to have them here for the ordinary and spectacular of our existence, I like to believe there isn’t a moment when they’re not with us.
Seeing it all. Marveling. Delighting. Cheering us on through the good. Holding our hearts when it’s hard.
The difference is now they they get to live through us. And we get to share with them all that makes our lives the breathtaking journey it is.
Guided by Grief begins May 10
This six-week series to help you transform your relationship to grief includes wisdom teachings, meditation and embodied practices, journaling, ritual and gentle movement. We meet virtually once a week to learn how to navigate grief with more compassion, grace and trust in the process. Limited to 10 participants. Ongoing email and text support available in between sessions. Learn more and register here.
What past participants have said:
“I have found (this series) very supportive and nourishing in this time and your presence and capacity for soft space holding is a huge part of that.”
“Thank you for the spacious and beautiful past 6 weeks. You can trust this one to hold space for your grief, to allow you to feel safe enough to slowly open and release. Last night, I remembered that when there is so much unknown swirling I can trust my grief to guide me. That my broken heart and tears have always held me even when I wasn’t aware of it.”
Come write and walk in the woods
The meadows and woodlands at Natural Lands’ Hildacy Preserve are gorgeous this time of year. Join me for an afternoon of writing in response to some healing poetry followed by a guided walk through the preserve to engage with nature’s bountiful balm. Learn more and register here.
Monthly in-person grief support
This monthly, in-person grief care offering invites space to speak and express our sorrows and to connect with each other while leaning into support. Sessions include meditation, journaling, ritual and other nourishing practices and are held at a beautiful wellness center nestled in the woods in Rittenhouse Town, Philadelphia. Sign up here to join me.
Grief Camp is here
I’m excited to be joining The Dinner Party the weekend of May 20 for Grief Camp, Gone Digital, a two-day virtual event featuring practices, rituals, art, community talks and a closing dance party to help us explore and express our grief. I’ll be in conversation with Sundari Malcolm, BIPOC Grief Educator and Care Curator for The Dinner Party, on Sunday, May 21. We’ll be sharing some of our story and speaking on “Accessing Joy and Gratitude Through Grief.” Learn more and register here.
Beautiful reflections 🌬🌀
Naila, your words flow as beautifully as the love between you and your dad. Thank you for inviting us to witness the stream. 💛