What grief dissolved

When Barney passed, in my arms,

4/10, 1:29 pm,

I had a hugely spiritual experience.

It maybe concretely, for the first time ever, made me FEEL the “after-whatever-you-want-to-call-it”.

Maybe my consciousness opened. Maybe my brain protected me. Regardless, my body experienced something it can’t un-experience.

The loss and grief has been deep. And I’ve also been deeply okay in most moments since. The greatest surprise of grieving Barney wasn’t how much I missed him but how very alive I felt. Not happier. Not "over it." Not grateful it happened.

Just... awake.

It was as though grief had cracked something open, and instead of only darkness pouring in (though the pain and heartache was (and is) real, life itself became more open. A portal of creativity, quieter presence and rich, slow, ordinary but very aware living.

The juxtaposition of the depth of grief washed on shore and the freedom or feeling very awake was not one I was expecting. Is it possible that our deepest losses become portals because they strip away everything that isn’t real, or essential, or our illusions of what we hold on to even when it’s time to let them go.

Grief oddly didn’t become an absence, it became an amplifier. Of loss and its meaning of course and the unbearable beauty of ordinary days.

Grief didn't teach me how to die. It taught me how to be here. And perhaps that's why I've become drawn to holding space for endings. To supporting sentient beings in leaving this world with dignity, safety, and love. Not because death has become less heartbreaking.

But because love, somehow, has become bigger than my fear of it.