Regardless of what we hold, remember that we cannot take it with us. Unleash the constraints and feel the freedom and expand the sharing: the sharing of time with a friend or risking your sharing of feelings with someone. Clinging or holding on to loss blocks us from moving forward.
She had flown to see me from Colorado. Her husband, the fire chief of the city they lived in, had collapsed with a massive heart attack. She was overcome with grief, loss , anger and every strong emotion that comes with the transformation of death of a loved one. Her mother and father had arranged for us to meet and they both sat in the living room, while she and I sat at the dining room table. Her parents were quiet, but listening to every word exchanged between her and I.
She had a hoard of emotions that were crushing her.
She really was not listening to me, but she needed to talk and so I listened. Finally, her husband said, “Tell her it is like the time I went to California without her, that my death is like that, I simply went ahead of her.”
I suddenly interrupted her, and relayed the message. She gasped! She was speechless! Slowly she said, “What did you say?”
Her Mother from the nearby living room said, “He said, ‘Tell her it is like the time I went to California without her, that my death is like that, I simply went ahead of her.”
I smiled at the Mother, who so deeply loved her daughter and wanted, somehow, to relieve the pain she knew her daughter was going through.
She gasped again as she saw me nod, acknowledging what her Mother had said.
As she sat there stunned, she began to relate the experience where her husband went to California, without her.
A few weeks before his death, they had gotten into a fight. They were supposed to leave the next day for a flight to California , to attend a wedding.
She had dug her heals in and told him she was NOT going! He went ahead of her the next day. When he got to California, he called her and they made up and she ended up catching the next flight out and they met in California only a few hours later.
They both had released the constraints of the anger from the argument and who was right and who was wrong. They then shared time with each other and opened up more to each other. She had given up all those ‘need to be right, my way or the highway beliefs that she had hoarded!
We can easily hoard emotions, beliefs, attitudes and dogma.
She understood now, that death is just a trip we all must take. We must work on ourselves and leave those burdens of hate, anger, fear, here and NOW. In California, they did not carry on the fight or the anger or the polarization of opinions. She had left those behind, the day before.
We all know of someone who has gone ahead. Let go, BREATHE! Use this time to become more aware of self, attitudes, and beliefs. Many of those attitudes and beliefs are like packing winter clothes for a vacation in Hawaii. Our sense of self can often be built on how we are different and separate from others, rather than what we share and have in common with others.
Any bulky baggage we will be charged heavily and unnecessarily for at the return journey, home.