I’ve written here and there about grief. My own experiences of losing people, roles, identities and countries, find expression in my art, poetry and scribbles. Without that creative outlet, I would not have been able to sense make what seemed impossible to comprehend. That we survive grief is not quite an accurate truth. It shapes us, and we are changed through the shaping.

After many years of estrangement from my adult children, I am only just able to look at old photographs of their childhood and adolescence. On the bad days, I can still feel a turning knife in my chest and the physicality of loss is an exposed wound. I don’t wrestle anymore. I’m trying to live the Buddhist way of detachment and acceptance. In this area I am a novice and no master. The thread of mother to child is golden for a reason, and hard to sever.

And life goes on. My boats keep sailing. My encounters with life remain magical. Loss cut me loose, and with the freedom came new waters to swim in. I have not left grief behind, but I know it better and can only bow to its power on the days it knocks me to the ground and I can’t imagine getting up ever again.

To all you folk out there dealing with grief, I applaud your courage for just taking another step. Time does heal, but it also changes who we were and what we become. We have choice in that. I witnessed my own mother on her grief journey, and it ate away her spirit. I vowed not to do the same. Pilgrimage was the act and choice, which ensured my path took a different route to hers.

Buen camino fellow pilgrims. Buen camino. 🙏🙏🙏