It’s been nearly 2 years since I sat in the quiet living room of the old house and listened to the story of my betrayal. I watched the sun disappear behind clouds of grief and unbelief. And my world went dark in an instant.
And in the remembering, I’m taken back to those initial moments. Those early days and months when all I felt was despair, grief, and sadness. Tears were a near constant companion. I remember laying on the floor, not wanting to go on.
When I compare that woman to who I am today, I can hardly believe that it’s the same person. But I believe that the only reason I’m where I am today is because I fully stepped into the grief. I didn’t bypass it. Spiritualize it. Try to explain it away as a part of God’s plan for my life. Instead, I full stepped into the grief and allowed myself to stay there for as long as I needed.
Grief as a passage
We live in a culture that has all but done away with grief rituals. We learn instead to hide what we feel. To put on masks and go out into the world as if nothing has happened. It’s no wonder so many people remain sad and miserable. Suffering from depression that never seems to go away. You cannot get to the other side if you don’t first walk through the passage of grief.
For me, I had to fully step into the grief and feel it all. And while I wrestled for months, trying to decide what to do, I learned to live with the questions and the loss. Made that in-between place of confusion and loss my home for a while.
I found things that soothed me and stayed close to them. Got out into nature every day that the weather permitted. I talked to trees and cried with the creek. Let the sunshine touch my face. Met every sunrise with a cup of steaming coffee and hunted for sea shells. I picked up a pen and I wrote and wrote and wrote. Pouring out my soul in private journals and sharing glimpses of the journey with all of you. Continued my mediation practice and moved my body with yoga. And I nourished myself with home-cooked meals made from scratch. Using raw ingredients from Mother Earth and turned them into plates of nourishment.
And then one day, I just knew. I knew what I wanted. I was terrified and relieved at the same time. But mostly relieved. As soon as I started taking one step forward, more steps appeared with startling clarity. And my grief, sadness, and depression were gone. Not saying I never felt them again because it still comes and goes at times. But the overall sense of the grief and loss were gone.
The steps to fleshing out that plan and building the new life I wanted were not easy. But watching the pieces fall into place bit by bit once I bravely embraced the new path has been astonishingly beautiful.
the other side of grief
I fully stepped into grief, as a passage, and now I find myself on the other side. Where I’ve built a new and beautiful life. Today I own a beautiful home that hums with healing energy. It’s surrounded by grass and trees, filled with plants and gifts from Mother Earth. It reflects who I am in ways no other home has done. It’s near the beach and I walk the shores frequently, sand crunching beneath my feet while the waves rush to kiss my toes. This place is full of sunshine and warm days, palm trees, and friendly folks who say “y’all.” My kids come to see me often. And while I miss seeing them frequently, the time we now spend together is so special.
I’ve met someone with a most beautiful heart, who sees me in ways I’ve never been seen before. My nervous system is relaxed with him and I know I am home.
Some folks look at me thriving and tell me I’m blessed. And while this is true, I can also say with surety that it didn’t just happen. I made choices. Took risks and put in the work. I knew with clarity what kind of life I wanted and then I set out to build it. It hasn’t been easy but it has been worth it.
Grief is inevitable because loss is a part of the human experience. It’s what we do with that grief that makes all the difference in what kind of life we will have moving forward. Unprocessed or unacknowledged grief can come out as trauma responses, hurting ourselves and those around us. Getting stuck in grief can lead to depression and anxiety. But moving through grief, as a passage, makes it possible to someday emerge on the other side and build the life your heart is pulling you towards.
Twenty five years ago we spent the day smiling for photos, saying “I do”, serving burritos and six different flavors of homemade cake to our guests. The day was full of funny stories, delicious flavors and our favorite people. We walked out to our borrowed car at the end of the day, jaws aching from smiling so much. Sure that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.
Today we spent the day sorting through our attic, dividing up mementos from these last twenty five years. We laughed at some of the silly things we saved and shared many “remember when” stories. It was bittersweet. When I opened the box of Christmas decorations and pulled out the handmade Kantha stockings that represent each person in our family, I fell apart for a bit. All the love we have in this wild and wonderful family came rushing in and it’s hard to imagine this change.
But this change does not make us a broken family. We are just a family that is re-shaping itself. This doesn’t mean we failed. Or fell short. We both poured our hearts into this beautiful family. And have no regrets. Instead we hold so much love and gratitude for what we’ve had and will continue to have. Just in re-shaped ways.
crumbling
Each of us will have moments in life where the things we have built will crumble in one way or the other. Crumbling doesn’t mean failure. It’s not the end of the world, even though it may feel like it for a long time. Crumbling, while incredibly painful, is also a gift. It is the opportunity to re-shape our life. To discard ways of being that have not served us well. And to build again in ways that honor the deepest, truest parts of ourselves.
Twenty five years ago, we built a life together using the tools we had. We did the best we could and crafted so much beauty and joy. But we have learned so much about ourselves along the way. Faced our own deep pain and traumas. Given each other a safe place to heal. And the healing we have found has changed us each in ways we could not have imagined. We are not the same people that said “I do” twenty five years ago.
If we had remained the same people that we were when we started this journey, we would have failed. Success is not a state of being; it is being present in the journey of wholeness. It is staying with the journey, not an ideal. And our journey has brought us to a place where our paths are separating.
bittersweet
The past couple of weeks have been full of practical steps towards this separation. We agreed on an attorney and filled out paperwork to start the legal process of divorce. We’ve started the task of physically going through the house and dividing up things. I’m looking at houses in a place I have wanted to move to for a very long time. We’re figuring out how to keep running our business and so much more.
It’s a time of both sadness and happiness. A time of remembering and looking ahead. It’s full of feelings and emotions, laughter and tears. It’s bittersweet in the best of ways.
I never imagined that this would be me. But the life I imagined didn’t turn out the way I expected so now I get to re-imagine. Relocate. Rebuild. In so many ways, my worst fears have been realized. And I didn’t die like I thought I would. I’m still here. Stronger and healthier than I’ve ever been before.
Don’t be afraid of the crumbling. Re-shaping your life might end up being the best gift you could receive.
There’s a heaping pile of pressure on women in patriarchal cultures. Many of us learn from early childhood, to clean up messes we did not make. As quickly and quietly as possible. Trauma has caused some of us to even anticipate those messes. Metaphorically speaking, we walk about on our tiptoes, broom and dustpan in hand. Waiting and ready for the next mess. We never allow ourselves to live our own lives. Instead we focus on keeping things neat and tidy for everyone else.
This pressure is magnified in subcultures, such as the Conservative Mennonite culture I was raised in. It’s been some time since I left that culture. Yet, like a tattoo on my shoulder, it’s never completely left me. And that’s not all bad. There has been much good to come out of my upbringing. But in times like the present, I feel a hundred pairs of eyes looking at me. Expecting me to do what I was taught. To swallow my feelings and forgive my husband and throw all my efforts into saving this marriage.
There’s no space for the necessary in-between. The dark, ugly, messy, UN-knowing space. Where one can’t see the end. Where it’s so dark you can’t see a thing at all. Not even your own hands waving in front of your face. You can only feel what you feel. Where you give yourself permission to forget about the end result. And you breathe in the air of the darkness around you until you realize you’re in a womb, not a tomb.
The Womb
I feel like I'm being born again
This awful infidelity
giving me
a fresh start.
A chance to create
the life I want.
Set my own terms.
Burrow into all the
cracks and crevices
of my tired
worn out life.
Find all the things
that no longer serve.
Give them a boot
kick them out the door.
Yes it's painful to see
these ashes.
But they speak to me
of new beginnings.
And I get to choose
my path forward.
Carve a place
that has room for
all of me.
This obsession with rushing to get things back to picture-perfect normal is killing us. It’s not life-giving or loving in the least bit. Cleaning up messes we did not make, serves no one but those in power. Rushing to forgiveness so that the other person can come home to you, means you may never get to truly come home to yourself. Quickly fixing things to make the other person comfortable means you may never truly be comfortable again.
Learning to be okay with a period of uncertainty and ambiguity is proving to be life saving for me. It’s giving me a much needed pause from the way my life has been. Allowing me to rest and be. Simply be.
And as I rest, realizations come to me. Rising slowly to the surface where I can sift and sort through. See with clear eyes the things that no longer serve me. Knowing deep in my core that as I learn to fully come home to myself, the rest will eventually fall into place.
Standing at the ocean’s edge, I feel like a woman who has lost everything. I am as worn and diminished as the grains of sand beneath my feet, desperate for a tiny scrap of light to break through the clouds. Needing a sunrise like I have never needed one before. It is one of those mornings when it is hard to tell where my tears end and the gray mist begins. This was me in mid-October…
going silent
Let me back up a bit. I know I’ve gone silent. Pulled into myself like a turtle who needs to hide for a bit. As much as I love words, they fled from me. Vanished. Refused to be crafted. I feel like a woman who has lost everything, even my words.
And I suppose it was a good thing, to be left alone with raw and wild emotions. To fully feel them before I tried to express them in a way that can even begin to make sense.
Yet, even now, these words are getting in the way of me going back to where the story of this grief journey began. Back to October. Back when the leaves were in their riotous dance of color and the sky still held enough blue to make one stop and stare in wonder.
Days that reminded me of the moment, twenty five years ago, when I knew Austin was finally going to ask me out. It was a perfectly glorious Fall day in Brooklyn and I had gone on a long walk to process this news that seemed to good to be true. Feet crunching through piles of bright yellow leaves, giddy with excitement, I felt seen and loved in a way I never had before. And the whole world looked different because of it. More alive. Bright with a hope that lingered on every street corner and whispered through the few city trees. Even the light itself seemed golden and alive.
Broken bits
And now, twenty five years later, I discover that he broke our agreements. That I wasn’t the only one he chose to be intimate with. This October, as my feet crunched through piles of bright yellow leaves, I felt as if I’d been shattered into a thousand pieces. While rain dripped down the cheeks of my city, I stumbled in a world gone dark.
I took a week to go to the ocean and grieve. To be alone and think. To move out of shock and begin to process what this means. And I still don’t know what all of this means. I do know that the world has gone very dark and much of what I thought I knew is now as uncertain as the ice on an Ohio lake after the first spring thaw.
listening
One thing I do know is that I am not going to clean up a mess that I didn’t make. I’m not jumping to fix things. I’m developing a practice of listening. Listening to the little girl inside who is surprising me with her insight. Listening to wise and trusted friends. Leaning into the wisdom of my therapist. I am holding my kids the best I can. They may be grown but they’re hurting a lot right now too.
I’m also listening to Austin, curious to know why he cheated on me. It took me a while to get to a place where I can truly listen without being constantly triggered. We are having deep and vulnerable conversations. It’s hard work and often painful. But we are not hiding our truth from each other.
There is much that I’m holding close and not sharing publicly right now. Truth is, I love Austin and have always believed in him. I have no desire to smear his reputation and I don’t feel a need to share details. But I’m sharing this here because you deserve to know there’s been a hard twist in our story.
Please hold our family in as much love and grace as you can. We are all so broken right now. I ask that you honor our privacy. Give us time to grieve the collapse of life as we knew it. The future, no matter what we decide to do or not do, will be difficult.
And, in case you wonder, after a long walk under a gray sky, this amazing ribbon of orange light shone through and reminded me that darkness is not forever.
Have you met my mother's daughter?
hair pulled tight to keep
ears from sticking
out too far
slicked back with
dippitydoo
long skirts over banged up knees
that preferred to kneel
in the dirt
by the creek
run away
by herself
find the meadow of flowers
tucked behind the woods
where her voice could roar and
bounce across the hills
sing songs that were silly
and dance in the dirt
The one who was a little
too much
so they hushed her with rules
and set her up to fail if
she opened her mouth
but gave her a place of
belonging
just for her
IF
she was quiet and
submissive
go to church but
not speak in it
bring casseroles and
jello cakes
in colorful dishes
leave them on the table
for others to consume.
give her body
scrub the toilets
hold the babies
wash the mud and dirt
off the floor and
the shoes
and the clothes
pull that wild curly hair
tighter
pin it into a bun
hide it!
all the wild glory
behind a piece of pleated cloth
cover those once-skinned knees
with pantyhose please
don't let your skin be seen
give up
the things you want
sacrifice with joy
give your life away
but hold on
to purity and
keep those curves covered
work harder, don't stop
wipe the tears of those around you
but hide yours
it's not okay to need or want
when others are suffering
sit here for family photo
hide the disaster that lurks
beneath the picture
perfect smiles pasted
over mental health that is rotting
turn the lights brighter to
cover the darkness that holds us
clenches us in a grip so tight
hold the one who
wants to die
fix her
all by yourself
because you have god
and that is all you need
besides there is no one
who sees you
all alone
carrying a load too big
staggering
stumbling
all for crumbs of praise
recognition that comes
for good girls who
are too much
so they must
give too much
Have you met my mother's daughter?
with the load so big it would crush her
if she tried to lay it down
her only way out then
to just keep going
keep saving others since
she cannot save herself
from a load of being
too much
so she crosses continents
and gives her life away
because there was too much
grief to stay
in the place where
my mother's daughter
had to grow herself up alone
be her father and her mother
knead the bread and
be the bread
until one day
she was all used up
and the sun no longer shown
on her inner landscape
and she had nothing left
with which to pretend
that it was light
and she was all right
so she fell
down
down
down
under the load she had
carried for far too long
and it crushed her
split her
into
a thousand pieces
And then
Glory!
she found her banged up knees
in the beautiful dirt
by the creek
she found her hands
in the meadow of flowers
tucked behind the woods
and there was her voice!
roaring and bouncing across the hills
singing songs that were silly
and there were her feet
dancing in the dirt
and when she looked into the stream
it stilled as a mirror
and she saw
finally saw
my mother's daughter
as she was always meant to be
and there the wind caressed her
tumbled her curls round her shoulders
and under the light
of a sumptuous moon
she found what they were always afraid of
she found her whole self
her too-much not-enough self
that was actually just right
so she stepped fully into her skin
all of it
and the sky dripped
giant tears of joy
while the hills laughed
with relief at
the sheer beauty
of a woman
who finally
stepped into
her whole skin.
When I was 5 years old, we rented a little house next to a pig farm. Beyond the yard and the pig pen was a lovely little creek. Behind it, the woods. I would venture off, exploring, every chance I had. One day I discovered a meadow of wild spring flowers, tucked into a corner of the woods. Some of my earliest moments of happiness were there in those woods.
Time passed and we moved. From house to house. State to state. I was born a granddaughter of a preacher. Later I became the daughter of one. I grew up in a tight community. But I also grew up alone. Learned how to hide the un-health of others. Carried burdens that were too heavy for a child. Some things are not yet speak-able because, contrary to the stories some tell about me, I really do love and care for my family.
But this poem has bubbled to the surface and wants to be given wings. So I release it to the winds that watched me step fully into my own skin. All of it. And know it will be taken to my sisters who still believe they are too-much, not-enough.
And the next time the wind roars past your ears, don’t be fooled. It’s never just the wind. It’s another one of us stepping fully into our own skin.
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In my introductory post, Torn Wings, I wrote about my dream of a butterfly. A graceful creature I saw who pulled herself out of the mud and muck, and flew across the ocean. The light shown through massive holes in her wings, and yet, she flew. I knew she was both me as an individual, as well as all of us who give voice to the feminine. That beautiful part of the divine that those in power have tried to erase.
In my dream, I watched in amazement as she flew bravely out over the water. With each beat of her wings she put distance between herself and those who had riddled her wings with holes. She carried a power that shattered the belief that the feminine is more fragile. Weaker. Less than. Something controllable.
Today I carry her on my shoulder. Nestled close to my heart. Her wings have healed and she has found her name. Mukti.
Becoming Free
Mukti is heard in many languages across Southeast Asia and carries with it the idea of setting or becoming free. What began as a dream on a hot summer night in Bangladesh, a few months before my husband came out, has become my Mukti, a symbol of hope and healing. Of both setting and becoming free.
Her journey is far from finished. I have her on my shoulder to remind me of where we have been and where we are going. As the artist knit threads of ink together beneath my skin, I did what she taught me. Breathe through the pain. Slowly. In and out. Again and again.
Finding our Mukti
Many us feel exhausted and brokenhearted today. As if our wings have just been riddled with fresh holes. What the Supreme Court did today shows me that the Patriarchy is afraid. This isn’t about life; it’s all about control. If it weren’t so heartbreaking, it would almost be laughable. This grasp at control. But the way of the feminine is not about control. It is about love and equality.
We refuse to be erased by showing the holes that have been put into our wings – and flying anyway.
This movement of beating wings has grown massive over the past few decades. And the Patriarchy is terrified. They are trying desperately to control us. And if they can’t control us, to erase us.
The butterfly I saw pulling herself out of the muck and flying out across the ocean, was for me that day. But today it is for all of us. We can’t be controlled and we will not be erased.
We will grieve for today. Hold each other and weep. But this is not the end. The muck cannot hold us down. We’ve pulled ourselves out before and we will do it again. Keep beating our wings until we find our Mukti once again. We refuse to be erased by showing the holes that have been put into our wings – and flying anyway.
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Last week I began to hear friends reference what they were doing a year ago, as the Pandemic began to spread throughout the US. The impact didn’t fully hit me until a new episode dropped in a TV show I had been anticipating. I watched as characters I’ve come to love received the news of an upcoming two-week lock-down in their city and I felt heaviness and grief rise up in my body.
This tangible fear and a sensation of anxiety resurfaced simply by watching these fictional characters and I thought to myself, ” they have no idea what is coming.” Just like that, I found myself face to face with the alarm and the frightening unknown that pursued me a year ago. When I had no idea what was in store.
Listening to the language of my body, I began to process what it means to near the end of a time of trauma. As I sat with the heaviness that had taken over my body, I felt gratitude for the physical sensations that would not let me just rush to the finish line in celebration. Without fully processing and bearing witness to the losses I had faced.
Grieving the losses.
We each have our own list of losses. Mine looks something like this.
The loss of solitude as an introvert in a house full of extroverts. All stuck at home together. One of them is diagnosed with ADHD but all four of them display multiple symptoms. So things can get kind of wild.
The loss of meaningful work and income. Bringing so much anxiety. While I am back at work and our business is thriving, there was a very scary time when I didn’t know if we would make it. It seemed as if the grants and loans were going to the big guys who didn’t really need it while small businesses like our own were barely hanging on. Not getting the promised relief. When we were denied benefits, though I could show proof we had not made a profit for 3 months.
The loss of relationships. People I thought were friends but showed me that my life was not as important as their comfort. But my life matters. I finally believe that now and it affects who I will spend my time with when this is all over. But the pain of losing relationships will last a long time.
The loss of places of belonging. Toxic places of belonging are still places of belonging and the human spirit yearns to belong. Pulling away from places that do not honor my life or the lives of those who matter to me has not been easy. It hurts.
Parenting 24/7. Juggling home schooling on top of everything else. My senior threw his graduation cap in the air in front of an empty auditorium last May and I wanted to ball my eyes out. My youngest, a junior this year, thrives with people and lots of activities. Doing school work at home on his iPad has nearly been the end to all of us.
The loss of travel. Gatherings of friends. Work conferences with like-minded people. The loss of rhythms and routines that bring sanity. Quiet. Order. Stability.
religious trauma
There’s more. I struggle to know how to write these words. Before the pandemic, I had stepped away from the church. Not from faith, but from the organization struggling to represent it. Please know that I am not speaking about a particular church. But the representation as a whole.
The pandemic, George Floyd’s death, and the resulting conversations on race and privilege, followed by Christian’s response to the election, have brought painful clarity. I lost the church. Or the church lost me. Either way, I don’t think I will completely recover from this. Nor do I want to. I will keep following my faith and the prophet who thought nothing of breaking religious laws so he could be kind to all. Blurring the lines between those who were “in” and those on the “outside.” For me, any remote desire to be back on the inside, died during the pandemic. Too many “Christians” gave out the message that my life (and the lives of certain others) does not matter.
listening to the language of my body
These losses are heavy. And the only way out is through. Listening to the language of my body, the heaviness, the aches and pains. To hear what they are saying to me.
“We cannot figure our way out of grief… we must turn toward our experience and touch it with the softest hands possible. Only then, in the inner terrain of silence and solitude, will our grief yield to us and offer up its most tender shoots… So much is carried in our bodies. The wisdom that is held within our tissues is something that we have almost completely forgotten. And yet there is no awareness more situated in the present moment than what is found in our bodies.”
Listening to the language of my body has become crucial to my well-being. That particular ache in one of my shoulders that flares up. I have long known it is brought on by stress and anxiety, my body’s way of getting my attention. Telling me I have taken on too much. Reminding me that I’m longing for comforting touch and a place of belonging. Or for rest, deep deep rest. I close my eyes and find the little girl who first felt the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders and I ask her how she is doing. If I listen long enough, this little girl tells me what I need. It could be a listening ear, paper and pen to pour out my soul, or a boundary she needs me to set. She is wise beyond her years and is always within my reach.
closure
Two more things come to mind as I think about moving into the light at the end of the tunnel.
I need a grief ritual. A sacred space shared with a few close friends, to grieve the losses and metaphorically put this pandemic into the ground so we can rise and move on. Francis Weller says,
“Unlike most traditional cultures, where grief is a regular guest in the community, we have somehow been able to cloister grief and sanitize it, denying its expression as the gut-wrenching and heart-breaking event that it truly is… ritual is the means whereby we can work the ground of grief, allowing it to move, shift, and, ultimately, take a new shape in the soul.”
The terror of this past year has brought me face to face with previous traumas. I’ve jumped bravely into the deep end and discovered new ways of being in the world. One thing I’ve come to understand is that victims who are rescued from trauma, have a much harder time healing from that trauma than victims who were able to use their own resources to escape. Naturally, sometimes being rescued by another is the only possible way out but the invaluable truth from my therapy this past year is that I am my own way out.
choosing life
In reflecting on the Pandemic, I am convinced that I did what I could to stay safe and keep others safe. There were things beyond my control, but now, as we near the end, there is something I can do, for myself. I can get the vaccine as soon as I am able. I can be my own way out. It is one way of taking this trauma and putting it into the ground.
I know that this is a controversial topic for some. And yet for me, it is about choosing life. For myself and those around me. It has hurt a lot to feel as if my life hasn’t mattered to some people this past year. And I can’t change that. I can make certain however, that those around me know beyond a doubt that their health, well-being, and yes, even their lives, matter to me.
The journey from grief to glory starts by sitting with death and loss. Listening to the language of the body. Letting grief be an honest conversation of soul with the outer world . Letting flow what must flow. In the end, we must find a way to choose life.
Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.
Christmas Day found us snuggled in close. The kids all home. Snow falling and falling and falling. Piles of good food and heaps of presents. Laughter and love slipping from our hearts and filling us back up at the same time.
Heart full, I checked my phone at the end of the day. One message stared back at me from the screen. My Grandpa has passed on.
In the most poetic of ways, the great Poet of my childhood, the one who always made me feel seen, safe, and loved, had passed on. On Christmas. A man of faith who always had one eye on earth and one on eternity. A man who fully lived his life here while longing to go “home”. He was finally home. After 100 years on this earth.
grief is praise
Gone. Leaving a hole that words fail to fill. Grief washes over me like the waves of the ocean, the salt from my tears rolling with the endless expanse. My grief is praise to the greatness of my Grandpa.
“Grief expressed out loud, whether in or out of character, unchoreographed and honest, for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses. ”
My grandpa was called to be a preacher long before I was born. The son of an Amish farmer and author, my grandpa was ordained by lot as a pastor in the Mennonite church when he was 34 years old.
One of my earliest memories of him is both a confusing and painful one. I remember sitting in the pew one Sunday morning. Swinging my legs in the air because they did not yet reach the floor. I looked down at my new blue dress, lovingly fingering the three Holly Hobby Buttons that were stitched on the front. Admired the soft ruffle that edged the skirt. After what felt like an eternity, Grandpa got up and began his sermon.
While his exact words elude me, the admonishment passed on to me that day was that women should not wear frilly things. I looked from my cute little buttons and my ruffled skirt up to the woman I was sitting with. I can’t remember if it was my mother or one of my aunts. But I know it was a woman because the women still sat on one side of the church and the men on the other. I remember looking up in confusion, wondering what we should do about my new dress. I went from feeling pretty and happy, to confused and dismayed.
In many ways, I have spent many years since then trying to figure out what to do about that dress. The teachings of family and church in my early years left me with an unconscious belief that I, as a woman, should never look beautiful. That little girl in her cute little new dress was shut behind a door inside of me until I finally realized I could not fully live until I gave her a voice and a place.
Grandpa my friend
But here is the exquisite piece – my Grandpa loved me no matter what. He saw me, the shy little girl who grew to love crafting words as much as he did. Who shared his love for cherry delight and brown sugar frosting piled on thick. The country girl who grew to love wandering the hills and praying out loud with only the trees and stones of the brook, the birds, and the squirrels as fellow worshipers.
One of my happiest childhood days was spent at his side. My parents had moved us from Ohio to Arizona. One winter, my Grandparents drove out to stay with my brothers and I while my parents went on a trip. Now grandpa walked every day of his life that he was able. If it was icy out, he would walk loops in the house. Nothing deterred him from moving his feet to the rhythm that thrummed inside his giant heart.
So on one particular day in Phoenix, my grandpa decided to take his walk up a nearby mountain. And he wanted my brother and I to join him. He called the school to get permission and we were allowed to take the entire day off. I loved school but when I put my feet on the mountain path and breathed in the fresh clear air that only exists in places like that, the air of the classroom felt like a stuffy memory. Walking up the mountain with Grandpa woke something up inside of me and I have been in love with walking and with mountains ever since.
grandpa the famous
At church, the next Sunday, the visiting pastor, who was quite famous in our circles, nearly shrieked from the pulpit when he recognized my Grandpa sitting in the pews. I felt so proud to be linked to this famous person that my Grandpa was.
Years later I found myself sitting in another pew. This time behind my parents as they waited for my grandpa and another visiting pastor to come out of the side room with the hymnals that were used for ordination by lot in our denomination. I saw the slip of paper in my dad’s hymnal a fraction of a second before he did and I felt the weight that my grandpa felt at his own ordination. As a woman, I would never have a place of leadership in our Mennonite circle, yet I felt a weight that literally shook my shoulders as if I would be the one to bear this new responsibility.
Always welcoming
Time moved on and so did our family, eventually settling in the Carolinas. We didn’t get to see Grandpas very often. But when we made the trip back to Ohio and would walk through that door, Grandpa would always come to welcome us with arms wide open.
“Ooohhh my! If it isn’t Marita! Mamma, come see who is here!” And he would envelop me in his arms and hold me close to his heart for a minute. Letting me know that no matter where my journey took me, I would still always belong.
Black Sheep
What I wouldn’t give for one more of those hugs. Because of COVID, I didn’t get to say goodbye to him and that brings a sharp edge to my grief.
If I’m being honest though, I suppose I have kept myself away more than necessary over the past few years because I have felt like the black sheep of the family. The same ancient texts and the teachings of loving the Divine with all I’ve got. Loving my neighbor as myself. These same teachings have brought me to a very different practice of faith. It first took my feet across the ocean. Then it brought me home. Now it’s taken my feet to rallies and protests. Opened my mouth to support queer people. Refugees. Immigrants. Black Lives. Lately, it’s caused me to mask up and stay away. It’s opened my eyes to recognize the Divine in the most unexpected places and in people I would have been taught cannot house the Divine. Yet there It is.
I think part of me has kept a distance because I felt like the odd one out. The lone Democrat in a family of Republicans. The one who has left the faith – when in reality, my faith has never felt more real. More true. And my soul more whole. I didn’t want to disappoint. Neither did I like the feeling of being so different. Of perhaps not belonging anymore. In this way, my grief is praise to the tight feeling of belonging I once had.
Grandpa’s girlfriends
Yet Grandpa would always envelop me and welcome me home. No matter what. Even when his eyes could no longer recognize me, his heart did. And he would laugh and be so glad that one of his girlfriends had come to see him.
You see, there were 5 of us granddaughters and 12 grandsons. He took to calling us his 5 girlfriends. He would periodically take us out for breakfast and, after a morning of stories and laughter, he would ask the waitress for the check. Always letting her know that these were his girlfriends.
While Holmes County and the Mennonite world may know him as a preacher, he was so much more than that.
Moving across the ocean several times, compressing my belongings to several suitcases, has caused me to loosen my hands and let go of many things. Yet somehow, I kept a letter that Grandpa wrote to me when I lived in Brooklyn. I had traveled to Ohio for the holidays and left my coat at his house when I left. He took it to his store where he sent it UPS. When I pulled it from the box, in my tiny apartment in New York, I found a sweet letter that he had written to me. I pulled out that letter Christmas night and read it once again. I read again how he had given my coat a couple of extra hugs and prayed over it before he sent it. Held the letter to my heart in one hand. Squeezed the Holly Hobby buttons I had saved in the other…and wept.
Tears of grief. Tears of Praise.
I lost a great love. But I had a great love.
Loss is complex. Loss is simple. Grief is praise. And in this way, grief is good.
It leaves a hole because something was there. Something that spent a lifetime of growing and giving and blooming.
I think about all he was. The enormous role he filled for so many. The impact of his life. And I look around. At my father and his siblings. My brothers and my cousins. My children and the other great-grandchildren. The great greats who have come and those who will come. And I see him. There is a bit of him in each of us because, well, I suppose it takes that many of us to hold all the pieces of who he was. And now still is.
He was our legend. And we are always his.
Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.
As loss blankets the world, coating everything and every place in the weight of silence, confusion and pain, many of us stumble awkwardly. Mundane tasks take twice as long as before. Survival is a full time job. Emotions come with a tornado-like force as we feel the brunt of this whirlwind.
Fear.
Exhaustion.
Loneliness.
Anger.
Rage.
Helplessness.
Both overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.
There is so much to feel right now. So much to process. So much muchness to this crisis.
I suppose there are some who may be enjoying their stay-cation. Happy to be getting projects done around the house or binge watching favorite shows. But most people I know are struggling to survive. Trying to balance homeschooling, working from home, creating 1001 meals and snacks a day while only grocery shopping once a week. Paying the bills with no income. Applying for grants that sound promising but feel hollow weeks later. Crossing scheduled events off the calendar. Staring at emptying bank accounts.
Naming the grief
It’s too much, these colossal losses. Jobs. Lives. Health. Rhythms and structures that kept us sane. Gathering places and people to gather with. All the things that once filled us up. Most of us don’t have time to process and really think about all the things we feel right now – yet, if we don’t, these things will smother us.
Somewhere along the line, I realized I was slowly naming the grief. Identifying various losses. Giving them names and telling them where to sit in the basement of my soul until it was their turn to be dealt with.
Sometimes we have to push things aside momentarily while we tend to our survival. But at some point, we need to remember and tend to our grief and our losses.
Tending the grief
One grief that I am tending to is the loss of meaningful work. I’ve had many different jobs over the years. Worked in restaurants, bookstores, schools. I cleaned houses, did nannying, ran a printing press. There was an after school program, a guest house, even my own home baking business. Some were exhausting but paid the bills. Some were enjoyable but didn’t pay the bills. Others were tolerable. But precious few were meaningful.
The last 10 years have been different. Since starting Kahiniwalla with my husband, work has taken on a whole new meaning. You can read more about that here. I don’t wake up dreading the thought of going to work – I love it! It felt like after all these years I finally found my thing. Even during the years when we didn’t know if we were going to make it, living on next to nothing, the meaning I got from our work helped keep me going.
Now our warehouse sits quiet and cold on the other side of town. Shelves stocked with toys, ready for shipping but no one to ship them to. Stores had pretty much stopped ordering even before the Ohio stay-at-home order was put into effect. Many are fearful and uncertain, spending money on essentials, not on fair trade toys. I get that. But even while I understand it, I grieve it.
I miss sitting at my desk in a brightly lit room, printing out orders and filling boxes. Running down the steps to let the UPS driver in to pick up the days’ stack of boxes. Emailing invoices and balancing the books. Organizing incoming orders. Having coffee breaks with my husband and planning our next e-blast. Booking flights and making accommodations for trade shows. Blogging about social justice issues. Communicating with Pebble in Bangladesh. Just being connected to this buzzing network of hope where amazing women are being empowered.
And it’s not over. Good grief. That would be a whole other level of loss. But to have something so big and meaningful on pause, for even the tiniest bit, makes me feel incredibly sad and lost.
Now I spend my mornings at a small desk in the bedroom. There is a small stash of Pebble toys in our attic, for tiny orders that occasionally trickle in. I answer emails, change shipping dates, pay bills. Since things are completely shut down in Bangladesh as well, there’s not much to do except to worry. Hope. Pray. Wait. Grieve.
Sitting in the grief
There’s a Pebble shaped hole the size of Bangladesh inside of me. Tending the grief is hard. How does one tend to a hole in the soul? I don’t know. I’m not an expert on these things. But I do know that naming it has helped. Intentionally picking it up and turning it round in my mind helps to bring clarity.
This meaningful work has nothing to do with worth but everything to do with satisfaction. Purpose. Filling up.
Morning light is hitting the trees outside my window. Soon they will be bathed in a golden glow. Dark shadows pushed aside as they soak in the light. I hold my grief up to the light, hoping the dark shadows will be pushed back a little further each time I do this.
Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.
An ocean later, we were home. The long arduous journey of flying halfway around the world with 3 wild boys, their dad, ten suitcases and five carry-ons was nothing compared to the emotional and psychological oceans I was having to cross. The guilt and anxiety I felt for pulling my guys from their happy place left me feeling as if I were drowning in an ocean I could never begin to swim.
Oceans of Guilt
When I gave Austin the option of staying behind and getting a divorce, he would have none of it. He continued to choose me, even thought it meant walking away from his dream job. In some ways I felt relief, but mostly I just felt guilt, and lots of it.
When we broke the news to our boys, they were very disappointed. Our oldest had been looking forward to moving to the upper classes at the international school they attended and all of them were thriving and hanging out with kids from all over the world. I tearfully sat through their good-bye ceremony at school and felt like the most horrible mom in the history of moms. Looking at the beautiful faces of their classmates, from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Germany, Holland, England, Ireland, Australia, Ethiopia, I couldn’t believe I was making them leave all this.
I knew deep down, that I had to do this or a part of me would forever die.
The guilt I felt was haunting. The me, before my husband came out, would have sucked it up and made myself stay in the situation, even if it was harmful for me.
Somewhere in the middle of all this muck, I had come across a book about Codependency. I realized with startling clarity, that this pattern of relating had become normal for me. While it was a necessary tool of survival in childhood, I now saw how damaging it was for me as an adult.
Codependency made it impossible for me to set healthy boundaries or practice any kind of self love . It kept me jumping to meet the needs of others at my own expense. Codependency made it difficult for me to say no to people. I was always aware of the feelings of others in the room and worked so so so hard to keep things smooth and calm so that others might be happy. I couldn’t relax and be happy myself unless everyone else was taken care of and happy. This, of course, was impossible and filled my life with stress and anxiety.
The decision to move home, even though it was extremely disappointing for my husband and kids, was the biggest thing I had ever done for me. I knew deep down, that I had to do this or a part of me would forever die. So kept moving forward, through the oceans of guilt that dogged my every step and breathed down my back as I filled suitcases and said good byes to people I loved deeply.
Oceans of Anxiety
Anxiety chimed in and joined the overwhelming guilt. Even though I was finally pushing for something I needed, I had a hundred million questions and fears.
How would we pay the bills once we moved home? It was the scarcity of jobs in our area that had prompted us to move overseas in the first place. Would Austin have to settle for a job he hated just to keep food on the table? What would that do for his emotional health? How would the boys transition to going from a small loving international school community to the huge public school system? How was I going to be able to act like all was normal when I was still dying inside? Would we be able to find a counselor who could help us? Could we afford one if we did find one? What would we drive? How would we afford health insurance? And the biggest question of all – were the two of us going to make it through this together?
All the habits of safety I had clung to had actually never brought me to a safe place
I was scared, so scared. Every day I was tempted to take back my decision and just do what felt good for everyone else, to take the road that felt safer and more sure. Yet I knew that all the habits of safety I had clung to had actually never brought me to a safe place. Perhaps when the letting go is terrifying, it is also utterly necessary.
Oceans of Grief
Grief is our body’s natural response to loss. I was feeling waves of it wash over me daily. There were so many losses at our door. The husband I thought I had married. My self esteem. His dream job. The perfect school for the kids. The lushness of the tropics and the warmth of the people that inhabited them. Beautiful community. Identity.
We had spent much of the last decade as volunteers and didn’t know how to be normal people who worked from 9-5. We had the incredible privilege of not having to worry about money, focusing our concerns on marginalized people. It sounds beautiful and noble but, the truth was, I had no idea who we were apart from that.
And I was still wrestling with the loss of my identity as the wife of a straight guy. It was something I was never going to get back.
Additionally, I was starting to recognize that many of the ways I found identity and purpose were actually harmful. It was devastating to realize a life of serving and self sacrifice had wounded my own soul deeply because it came from an unhealthy place.
Like the butterfly my son showed me in my dream, I was going through the fight of my life. Pulling myself out of the muck that threatened to smother me until my torn wings finally pulled free and I began to fly across the ocean. Ravaged, torn wings beating still, carrying me towards home.
Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.
