Six years ago today was one of the most precious days of my life. The next morning, after our wedding, Laura rolled over in bed and grabbed me; ‘Now you are mine!’ she grinned. She was so covered in tumors, every movement was hard, so it felt like a small miracle. Six years later she…
Category: loss
Mum – Eulogy
My beautiful mum passed a year ago today. I was at her bedside when she had a massive stroke. She shared a joke with me, as she was losing the ability to speak. We laughed and cried, and within minutes she was gone. Unconscious. Somehow, a week later I managed to read this eulogy at…
Grief
Grief stops the clock on a lot of things. And today the clock stopped literally. My Mum’s watch broke. It’s almost exactly a year to the day since she passed. That little silver watch is my most cherished possession (Mum laughed when she saw me wearing it, ‘That old thing.’) She got it when she was 21….
Momentum
Kindness abounds. Friends invite me on holiday to Palm Beach. The neighbors keep a watchful eye on my 92-year-old dad. And after nearly nine months of flat lining emotionally or worse feeling desolate and sometimes lost since mum’s passing, it’s as if the power is beginning to flicker back on inside. And more than that….
Five Years
Wednesday was the fifth anniversary of Laura’s passing. Five years. And yet she is still as present to me as ever. On Monday, her dive buddy Jo and I had dinner together and reminisced about her – her charm, her quirks, her struggles, her kindness and her compassion. There is something magical about talking fondly…
Learning to Walk in the Dark
One of my most treasured books, Learning To Walk In The Dark is a series of essays by Barbara Brown Taylor about the revelations that come from confronting fear, loss, pain and suffering. Take the story of Jacques Lusseyran, a young Frenchman who at age seven became permanently blind. A little over a week later he discovered…
The Golden Hour
‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.’ Laurence Binyon – (extract from For The Fallen)
Sedona, Snakes & Saviors
‘It’s rattlesnake season,’ the woman rescuing us said, as she and her golden retriever led the way back over the red rocks, through the juniper trees, sweetly scented sage bushes and tangled yews to the Sedona trail head where we had parked our car a couple of hours earlier. We weren’t exactly lost. We were concerned….
Comfort Clothes
My dad wore one of my mum’s sweaters out to dinner last week. He’s not alone. We’ve all been delving into mum’s wardrobe since she passed. An old pair of mum’s black leather gloves is one of my most cherished possessions. ‘They’re falling apart,’ Dad said quizzically when I said I wanted to take them….
Grief & Loss
Grief involves finding yourself again. It is not just the beloved who is lost when someone dies. For a long while, it is yourself too. These are the wretched days of feeling lost and of learning once again to walk in the dark and find my way forward. In a very profound way, losing…
Abundance of Spirit
I love dragonflies. I love the shimmer of their iridescent wings and how they can zoom in any direction (including sideways and backwards) helicopter-style. But last weekend, I had 11 land on me (I’ve never had one land on me before). It all happened in less than 15 minutes, as I sat on my friend…
Being There
‘Being there is everything in love, in life and in dying,’ – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (founder of the US hospice movement)
Disembodied Grief
When mum died, I didn’t see her spirit leave her body as I did with Laura. But I was there by her side in her final hours. And ever since I have a weird disembodied feeling, as if I am not quite here. At first I thought it was a protective numbness. But now I…
Signs and Talking To The Departed
My beautiful mum, who enfolded us all in love all her life, is still here – still spreading her golden love around us. Or so it feels. My sister Andrea and I have been experiencing a golden presence enveloping us. We can also hear her speak to us (offering advice and words of comfort). And…
Janette Young, 19 November 1931 to 22 May 2018
My dear mum, who surrounded me and my family with unconditional love all her life, has gone. She was the kindest person I’ve ever met and like Laura had a beautiful open smile. Her cousin Isabella recalled: ‘She brought the sunshine into the room with her.’ I was blessed to be with her at the…
Soul Love Forever 