tuesday, may 31, 2022 Quote of the day

“We never get over great losses; we absorb them and they carve us into different, often kinder creatures.”

Gail Caldwell

My five-year-old grandson has quite a collection of rocks. He is mesmerized by the impressions that time has made upon them. Using a chart his dad provided, he and I spent an afternoon reading the fossils and imagining the stories the nooks and crannies were trying to tell us. Rocks shed light upon a prehistoric time period; they tell of a time that once was through the crevices and cleavage of each stone. I couldn't help but recognize the simplicity of how rocks connect with loss.

Getting over grief is not possible. The pain of loss never goes away. I think of grief as a large rock jutted out of a river. It is firmly embedded in the sediment of the river refusing to be tugged and pulled by the current from its place. We cannot deny or ignore; it is just there.

As we continue on after the passing, our grief is the rock that won’t budge. At times, we bang into it, but we learn to honor it. We wear it as a badge because it means we have loved deeply. Our choices and the ways in which we carry on is like the water; it merely finds another way to maneuver around it.

The grief-rock carves our story, the story of our loved one and the life shared. We study our own grief in the same way my grandson and I studied his fossils. Our loved ones have made an impression on our lives, an impression that deepens with time. Scott Shaw reminds us to “be like the river encountering the rock-flow with grace around any obstacle.” It doesn’t have to be graceful, and you’ll even fall out of the canoe at times.

Dump out the water, and climb back in.

thursday, may 26, 2022 Quote of the day

“I had to surrender my “if only.”

Corrie Ten Boom

One piece of the grief process is knocking away the “if onlys” circulating and consuming our thoughts. When our loved one departs, it is so easy to torment ourselves into thinking there was something we should have done, something we could have done, to prevent death from happening.

Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian woman who saved many from the Holocaust, could not save them all. She too was tormented as she struggled with what she could not do instead of what she accomplished. If onlys are a dangerous and slippery slope that prevents healing. If onlys suggest that we control life and death. It is really our ego trying to control what we cannot.

If a couple wants to conceive a child, the miracle of reproduction is practiced. It may take one or two tries or several years. The creation and timing of a child's entrance is the intention of the Universe, not ours. We try, we wait, and leave the rest to Nature.

Like conception, death is also beyond our control. Ego is such a torrent to our emotions. Ego is a delusion and separates us from our true endless spirit. When we wrestle with controlling things beyond our power is the darkness. With ego in control, we are unable to accept the light.

A Course in Miracles explains that ego is delusion and delusion is not real. We are nonexistent in this state when we allow ego to have power. However, healing manifests when we release the ego and the desire to control. When we learn to accept what is rather than what we want or wish we could change, we find peace. Not as the world gives, but the peace that is felt in our soul.

May you feel the peace that resides within you. See you Tuesday

wednesday, may 25, 2022 Quote of the day

“To wrestle with God does not mean that we have lost faith, but that we are fighting for it.”

Sheila Walsh

Years ago, I was fired from my volunteer position as a Parish School Religion (PSR) teacher! My third grade student asked me if being Catholic was the best religion. I simply answered, “No.”

I asked the class to imagine God at the very top, and then to imagine many ladders underneath. Each ladder represented a different Christian faith: Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran and so on. (Teaching Christianity was my job, and even though I study many beliefs such as Buddhism and Taoism, of course I would never have included those in my ladder imagery.) I went on explaining that although there are many ladders, where are they all going? My curious little student immediately shouted, “To God!”

Another teacher “told” on me because he felt I should have said that Catholicism was the best. When I was confronted about what I said, I explained that it wasn’t my job to judge what religion is best. It seems futile to argue whose God or what faith is the right one. We have one creator, and the way we celebrate is our gift back to our Ultimate Source.

Obviously, they weren’t in agreement, so I was invited not to return. Not all churches agree with the one I was teaching, however. In fact, my current pastor laughed at the idiocy of my termination when I shared my story.

We will all suffer grief, and we will argue and dispute the unfairness. As I’ve mentioned before, I have shaken my fist and yelled at God more than I’d like to admit. I wrestled with what my life and my faith meant. I was able to dismantle my naivete of how life should be for me, and in the process, built an inviolable connection to my creator.

My faith has been the strongest shoulder in which I lean into most deeply. Strangely enough, the losses made me delve into the mystery, the unseen, and the true reality of what is to come. My grief eventually deepened my faith. My grief led me to classes, books, enlightenment, and to all of you, my dear readers of StoryLight.

Wrestle and rebuild.

tuesday, may 24, 2022 Quote of the day

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Joseph Goldstein

The insightful advice Joseph Goldstein offers up to us is saturated in hope and perseverance. In the beginning stages of great losses, those inflicted are struggling just to stand as a newborn colt does. However, with time, healing happens. Welcoming each stage is part of the process…the process you yourself determine.

An example of such strength is told to us in the heartfelt poem Horatio Spafford penned after suffering tragic losses. During the grief of some personal tragedies through which his family experienced, Spafford sent his wife and their four daughters on a transatlantic trip from America to England. Once he settled some outlying concerns, he would join them. During the voyage, the ship sank and only his wife, Anna, survived.

Having now lost his little girls, Horatio hurried to England to join his wife. As the ship sailed over the portion of the sea where his children perished, the captain notified Horatio of the area in hopes of consoling the distraught father. Overcome with emotion, the grieving father returned to his quarters and wrote the poem, “It Is Well with My Soul.”

Below are the first and last stanzas. The first synchronizes with Goldstein’s quote; although you cannot control life, you can learn to ride it. Spafford embraced a deep Christian faith, but his last stanza suggests an acceptance of any using the simplistic personal point of view For me. In grief, there is no division.

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say,

“It is well, it is well with my soul!”

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live;

If dark hours about me shall roll,

No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life

Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

After a few years since Jim’s passing, I am not certain I can say it is well with my soul, but I am still processing my journey and riding the waves as they come.

Honor your journey.

thursday, may 19, 2022 Quote of the day

“Sometimes the best things are right in front of you; it just takes some time to see them.”

Gladys Knight

If you have ever been in a high-rise building, or a scenic vacation destination, the views can be breathtaking. Maybe your hands and feet even get a little sweaty. Perhaps your knees rattle a bit because of the height. But you gaze out into the beauty that lies just beyond the window.

However, there is a smudge on the window. It is right and eye level. It's all you can focus on, and it is perfectly obstructing your view. Reaching into your pockets, you search for a tissue, but to no avail, you come up empty handed. Taking the sleeve of your jacket, you start to rub away the dirt, but the smudge is now getting blurrier. You’ve just kind of moved the dirt around. Feeling so frustrated, you turn away and complain how horrible this moment, which was supposed to leave you awestruck, is completely ruined.

Although I am not suggesting you to rush through your grieving journey, I am suggesting to occasionally give the power grief holds on you away, and let the beautiful moments of remembrance in. I miss my parents, my brother, and my beloved Jim so much it hurts, but I had them all in my life albeit not long enough. It will never be long enough.

I can choose to see the grandiose view of the life I shared with them. I can choose to relive our moments in pictures, songs, activities, and meals. I can choose to talk about them, share their stories, and keep their names on the lips and in the hearts of those still here. In doing so, they are never really gone. Or…I can choose to see the darkness, the dirt, and emptiness.

Oh, I can easily go down the rabbit hole, so to speak, when grief sneaks back in, but I can choose the view over the smudge…I can choose the love over the loss.

Keep the Windex handy. See you Tuesday

wednesday, may 18, 2022 Quote of the day

“Self-sufficiency is a myth perpetuated by pride and temporary success.”

Sarah Young

When managing through loss, we need those special people who will help us carry the weight of grief. I am where I am today in my healing because of those who have walked this journey with me. When we achieve great and small accomplishments, it is because of the human and spiritual guidance we have had along the way.

An excerpt from my memoir expresses my love and gratitude for the strong shoulders that have supported me...

Every encounter, every soul gifted to us, is like a pulsation of energy surging us into the purposeful direction where we need to travel. I am on this so-called “other side of grief” because of the immeasurable love of those who hoisted me up to get me through and onward.

God provides all that is good, and He has given me everything I need to heal from the loss of my husband. God provided for me the shoulders to support me as I trek through each aspect of my life. God’s beautiful gifts, those miraculous souls, are like lily pads floating across a stream enabling me to warily step from one side of the bank to the other. One lily pad at a time, one moment at a time, until suddenly finding myself across.

I’ve been told that I am strong and that I have exemplified perseverance, but without the strong shoulders of those I stood upon and the arms that embraced me, I could have not continued. There was a time when I did not want to, but they, along with my faith, are the reasons I chose to see the miracles. My grief of losing Jim doused my fire to live, but my family, my tribe, my teaching, and those gently placed acquaintances, reignited my passion and purpose for life once more.

I was never alone.

tuesday, may 17, 2022 Quote of the day

“I’m courageous enough to know I can accomplish great things. I’m humble enough to know when to ask for help.”

Katrina Mayer

Trauma is used today in conversation more than ever before. In education, some students enter my classroom already worn from life. They are damaged from harsh experiences that no child should have to endure. Veterans returning from war were told to suck it up and just deal with it. However, because trauma is in the conversation, the awareness now allows a new platform to unfold.

Although it takes some coaxing, some students do come forward to talk to a counselor or a trusted teacher. I have had the honor to listen to a few of my students during my career. A few years ago, I attended a benefit dinner recognizing soldiers suffering from PTSD. The speaker opened my eyes to the severity of the suffering he was forced to stifle. Over time, he realized he needed help, and he was strong enough to ask despite the stigma of appearing weak.

The painful experiences during childhood and the traumatic suffering of those soldiers are foreign to me. I was brought up in a home where I felt loved and protected. I never went hungry; I always felt safe. I have never enlisted in the military, so I cannot fathom the sacrifices made by those who serve, and I thank you for all who serve as well as their families.

No matter if there was time to prepare, or the death was sudden, trauma forces itself upon the bereaved; losing a loved one is traumatic. Because I performed CPR that morning, I still cannot watch any hospital drama or police show because I remember hearing his ribs cracking under the pressure of my hands. When sirens from an ambulance blares, it sends my daughter back to that morning at the hospital. Through counseling and journaling, I am making progress. So is my daughter.

We cannot just suck it up, and thankfully, there are now platforms available in all shapes and sizes. The first grief class I attended did not fulfill what I needed, but I found another that did. There are many groups, organizations, and classes to get us through. We can’t avoid our pain no matter if it is derived from our childhood, our adult life, or by death. But help is available. Les Brown tells us that we should, “Ask for help. Not because you are weak. But because you want to remain strong.”

Speak up, reach out.

thursday, may 12, 2022 Quote of the day

“Become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid.” Lady Bird Johnson

In the beginning of my grieving, I tried desperately to relive our routines and the habits we created together. Trying to find comfort in the old familiar, was now incessantly stabbing away at me. Listening to our music, sipping my early morning coffee on our deck, and having an evening glass of wine on our porch, only compounded my emptiness. I was lonely and afraid. So what do I do now?

So much of myself died along with Jim that I no longer recognized this other me who was left behind. I had to befriend this other self and force her to confront the loneliness and fear. Each newness and outing I experienced caused anxiety, discomfort, and fear, but at the end of each one, the impact was lessening. I was getting stronger.

Feeling quite vulnerable, I slowly began “practicing” new routines. I would rise hours before dawn to journal. Hiking at local parks was the next phase, and afterwards, stopping at a sandwich shop for tea and a snack. I forced myself to be alone in crowds because I realized this was my new reality. In our marriage, Jim and I together discussed decisions that had to be made as I imagine all couples do. However, it was no longer a “we” decision but an “I” decision.

Taking Lady Bird Johnson’s advice to move past fear, I transferred from the English department to American history as something new I could “get wrapped up in.” I enrolled in night classes for personal development, began writing projects, and traveling either alone or with friends. A couple of weeks ago, I went to The Fox Theater in St. Louis to see Hamilton…by myself, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Just because we step back into life, doesn't nullify our loved ones; it honors them by choosing to continue.

After a loss, our world will never be the same, and as Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn states, “ironically, in a changing world, playing it safe is one of the riskiest things you can do.“ Find new hobbies, develop new routines, and in time, maybe you’ll even feel a smidgen of happiness again.

Take a risk; dare to bloom! See you Tuesday

wednesday, may 11, 2022 Quote of the day

“When you play it safe, you’re not expressing the utmost of your human experience.”

Lupita Nyongo

The woman I causally overheard commenting on how she plants even though she knows her flowers won’t live was most profound. Although our earthly relationships will end, we as humans, thrive from connections with others, and friends and family bloom into the most radiant bouquet. Relationships bond us together like connective tissue, and the one Jim and I shared was immeasurable in strength. So when our most beloved ones perish, do we dare attempt to bloom once more?

We could, I suppose, play it safe because if we don’t open ourselves back up, we never have to fear loss again. We would stay in the cold, dark dirt of grief, like a seed that refuses to bloom, to merely shrivel up and wither away. On the contrary, best-selling author Sarah Ban Breathnach suggests that, “playing it safe is the riskiest choice we can ever make.” Instead of paying it safe, how about we try taking a leap?

Let’s entertain the idea of great hopes instead of the unfairness of our loss. Instead of stumbling over the uneven walkway, what about trying to move the mountain? Giant leaps are different for everyone. Making our way from the bed to the shower can be a tremendous venture. But all the while, time is passing, and it is not ours to say when it will stop for us, so we rid ourselves of the survivor's guilt and set our clocks.

So how’d I do, did I make you proud will be one of the first things I want to ask Jim when we’re united again. He would be devastated if I did not continue. He knew his time was limited with his disease, but He LIVED! He accomplished more in his fifty-four years than he could have imagined. I won’t be here forever either…so must I continue in this human experience.

As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin expresses, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

No matter the length of the leap, you are leaping!

tuesday, may 10, 2022 Quote of the day

“Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

Mother Teresa

The first chapter in my memoir is titled, “When Faith and Fear Collide.” After suffering a loss, there is a swirl of uncertainty, of disbelief, spinning all around my thoughts. I remember feeling like an untethered astronaut floating aimlessly through darkness. Never did I think I would find my way back to light again. Although I am still processing and working through my grief, it took over a year before I realized that my faith was winning.

Albert Einstein observed that, “there are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.” I had to make a choice: to either hand my life over to grief or to affirm the meandering of miracles dancing all around me.

Faith is something we can’t taste, touch, or smell. However, faith, like love, is something to be felt deep within our hearts. Faith is the cord that pulled me out of my darkest place. The wounds of my loss truly did begin to scab. My path was becoming more clear as I realized I was still a work in progress. I was not yet finished.

Sarah Young notes that we ought to “grow in grace through the very adversity that was meant to harm you.” Death’s intention is not to harm us; no one makes it out of this world alive; that is part of the bargain. Death is as natural as birth. Just look outside during the springtime season. Out of the darkness and stillness of winter, nature renews itself in another cycle of life.

I was buying flowers over the weekend, and the shop was buzzing with other shoppers doing the same. I overheard a woman, who was filling the bed of her truck with flowers, mulch, and soil, that she spends hundreds of dollars buying things that will eventually die. That is faith!

Enjoy planting flowers of faith of hope.

thursday, may 5, 2022 Quote of the day

“I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.”

Pablo Casals

I was still quite numb a few months after Jim passed when a friend asked me how I was managing. I confessed that the sound of silence was deafening. My home, once filled with vibrant life and laughter, was still. With her eyes soft with compassion, she responded, “I know…well actually, no wait, I DON’T know, but I am glad you shared how you feel. I guess either Kevin or I will know that someday.”

My sweet friend was so gracious. She ventured into an unknown territory with me. She didn’t try to fix me or pretend to know what I felt, but instead simply expressed sincere compassion. She was not able to identify with my pain, just as I cannot begin to compose words of comfort to parents who have lost a child, nor would I impose my presumptions on this tragedy. The power grief reigns over any loss leaving us vulnerable and powerless, which oddly enough unites us.

Our heart’s capacity to love is inexhaustible. Thich Nhat Hanh promoted that “Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish,” so it is in the giving of ourselves that we have the most to gain.

Our culture does not have to be one of acquiring things; we can design a new culture of loving and giving, which as Casals suggests has the deepest significance.

When the wall of grief seals us in, the loving care of another can break through it. The cracks between the bricks shed much needed light. Let it stream.

See you Tuesday

wednesday, may 4, 2022 Quote of the day

“Maria, these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live.”

Mother Abbess (Peggy Wood)

Recently, I presented the musical, The Sound of Music to my Traveling World Cultures class. Students were commenting on how Captain von Trapp was so strict and cold towards his children. In literature classes, the students have been taught to examine the baggage characters carry into the plot. In doing so, it enables them to see character motive and development. So, I reminded them of the baggage the captain was carrying: he was a widower, and he was raising his seven children without his wife.

They were quick then to determine that he had built walls around his heart. He probably didn’t want to get too close to them fearing that he might lose them or the children could lose another parent. If he remained aloof and uninvolved, the hurt would not sting so badly when the inevitable happened.

The scenes continue and the captain mentions bringing a baroness home with him to meet the children. One of my brightest students asked a high level and complex question of the widower Captain von Trapp. “If his wife died, wouldn’t he still be in love with her? And if so, how can he begin a new relationship with another woman?” I answered, “And herein lies the problem. When can we feel we are ready to move forward, yet still honor the love that once was?”

The advice Reverend Mother gave to Maria was sound. The walls of the abbey are not meant to hide behind but neither are the walls we’ve built around our hearts after loss. The heart’s capacity to love is as infinite as our Creator Himself. Wounds and loss are the bricks that build up around it. It is only in confronting the hurt, like Maria did with her feelings towards the captain, that we can learn to love freely again.

Remove a brick or two…when you’re ready.

tuesday, may 3, 2022 Quote of the day

“We need love in order to live happily, as much as we need oxygen in order to live at all.”

Marianne Williamson

Because of my daughter’s recent marriage, I cannot help but write of love. The vows and promises made between her and her new husband revitalized our own need for love. The need not merely between a husband and wife, but the need for love in all capacities within our world. Thich Nhat Hanh proclaimed that we need to “love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”

Many years ago, I wrote a poem for Jim titled "If I Die Tomorrow" not long after we married. It was on the way to Niagara Falls with Jim’s parents and our children. I was riding in the very back of the Dodge Caravan when I was overwhelmed with love. My whole world filled the van, and I realized in that moment the love God has for me. Why did He feel I was so deserving of such fullness?

One stanza in my poem exposes the trust I felt with Jim.

My grasp had slipped and I crumbled before me

At last I'm naked for you to see

I read your mind through your eyes

And I knew that we could be

Love is standing in full exposure, not having to withhold or hide any part of who we are. I carried deep wounds within me, and for some time, I was guarded. I did not want to open again to receiving love, so I had built protective barriers around my heart where I could hide. But as Zora Neal Hurston states, “Love makes you crawl out of its hiding place” and enables us to welcome love into our hearts once more.

Joining together two lives in the presence of loved ones to witness this sacred union, pulsates love out into the world. Love encourages us all to love with full vigor, with strength and with purity. Jesus, in the book of John, tells us to “love one another,” and as Marianne Williamson so beautifully states, love is as essential to our hearts and oxygen is to living.

Breathe love in deeply

Storylight A transformational journey SHARON M WIBLE