Post #6
Fascinating trees…
Tag Archives: grief
Pure Joy
Post #3
We flew to Buenos Aires, then boarded for our next flight.
While getting on the airplane, I saw pure joy on Jason’s face. What a treat that was for me to see, after all he had been through—the end-stage cancer journey I endured from 2009-2011, with everyone certain I would die; the breakup of our family; and his older brother Tristan’s two years of addiction and then overdose death in 2015.
Jason had been through sooo much and now had come out on the other side.
My heart sang.
As we flew across Argentina, outside my window I saw strange marks on the ground—lines and circles. I thought, “Surely not Nasca lines in Argentina.” They turned out to be, I was later told, the result of mining.
Later we crossed over the beautiful turquoise Santa Cruz River, set against reddish clay soil. It was gorgeous.
We soon arrived in El Calafate in the Andes Mountains of Patagonia.
A Pocket for the Penguin
I needed a new waist pack for our trip, so about a week before leaving I headed to Roads Rivers and Trails in Cincinnati and selected the most suitable one for my needs. But it was odd, having pouches on each side of the main compartment with no closures. I asked the sales rep, “What are these for?”
She didn’t know.
A few days later came the inspiration, probably from Tristan, to take his little penguin on our trip since we were going so close to Antarctica. The open pouch turned out to be perfect for carrying the bird–it would give him a perch for a perfect bird’s-eye view of the whole trip.
Jason, and many people we encountered, loved it.
Dream Trip
I lost my 19-year-old son Tristan to a heroin overdose in June 2015. My younger son, whom I will call Jason, still managed to graduate from high school a year later.
College, however, was difficult for him. To inspire him to attain graduation, I told him his gift would be a trip. I asked Jason, “If you could travel anywhere in the world, what place would you want to visit?
He told me, “Patagonia.”
I thought, “How am I going to manage a trip to Patagonia? I have never been south of the equator, don’t speak Spanish, and am concerned about internet access. And Jason has never been out of the country.”
However, I later met a woman who had grown up in Argentina but lived in the United States. I told her about my son’s dream, and she said she was returning to Argentina and would be happy to be part of our journey.
It took several years, but Jason graduated—and began working a salaried job. I was thrilled!
So, in early March we boarded planes and finally arrived in El Calafate, Patagonia. At the last minute, on a whim, I decided to bring along Tristan’s small beanie penguin to symbolically represent him with us.
I will be posting photos of our journey with Tristan’s penguin. I hope they bring you a smile.
Love You
Your irreplaceable loved one is gone. You have a gaping hole in your life where love once lived. Now you are faced with the holiday season.
It can feel so terribly lonely.
Yet that love still lives, inside of you. You are that love. Please do not abandon yourself.
Just think. You are the magnificent result of two tiny cells you can’t even see. Those cells joined together in an incomprehensible union that multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. Imagine the tremendous amount of life-force energy expended to create … you.
Amazing you.
Incredible you.
A you who is utterly unique.
Look at your hands. What beautiful things they have done for you all your life. They serve you nearly every moment of the day, without question, without asking anything in return.
Look at your legs. They have carried you all through your life, without question, without asking anything in return.
And your heart. It pumps life-giving blood into every cell of your body, dozens of times every single minute. Without question. Without asking anything in return.
Look outside at the plants. They grow, they create leaves, they bless the world with blossoms. Without question. Without asking anything in return. They are worthy of appreciation just by being what they are.
How much more worthy of love, gratitude, and care are you? By yourself? Without anyone else in the picture?
So offer it to yourself.
Maybe spritz on a nice fragrance and focus on the aroma.
Maybe make yourself a special meal or order out for your favorite foods.
Maybe take a warm, comforting bath and add fresh blossoms so they float around you.
You are the center of your own universe. Love you. Appreciate you. Care for you. Your dear one is cheering you on, and so am I.
The Sun Makes Me Sing
Brood X male cicadas are vigorously singing their little tymbals out, calling in mates so the cycle of life can continue.
To me, their drone is the beautiful music of summer, having formed one of my first firm memories of warm Kansas days.
Now they represent far more to me.
Cicadas spend more than a decade underground—in the case of Brood X, a seemingly endless seventeen years in darkness and silence. Then they crawl to the surface, break through their shells, warm up in the sunshine, and fly with golden-tinged gossamer wings.
They live only a few weeks in the sun. During this time they crawl and fly, sing and flick, dance and mate. When they are done with their shining moments, their legacy continues in their gifts of fertilized eggs, food for songbirds, and nitrogen for forest floors.
Just like we humans who choose to transform our lives. When we grieve, we spend a long time—sometimes more than a decade—in the Underworld. For me it started 12 years ago with an end-stage cancer diagnosis. This darkness involved two years of medical treatment, and then continued through the collapse of my marriage, multiple moves, dealing with my son Tristan’s years of drug addiction, the death of my father, and then Tristan’s heroin overdose death at age 19.
Years of suffocating in the terrors of human Hell.
And now—a dozen years and dozens of processes later—I am finally emerging into the light. Into dancing. Into joy.
Just like the cicadas, I am spreading my own golden gossamer wings and learning how to fly. Nourishing others who also want to sing again in the light of the sun. And leaving my own legacy for future generations.
Would you like to join me? I offer grief survival coaching for those who want to thrive and fully embrace life again. Contact me at heidi@grievinganaddict.com to find out more.
Source for title:
Frédéric Mistral from Provençe, France, coined the phrase, “Lou soulei mi fa canta,” Provençal for “the sun makes me sing.” https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/la-cigale-why-the-cicada-became-the-symbol-of-provence
Message in a Fawn
Do you feel like you did everything you could but still lost your loved one to substance use disorder? Do you think you abandoned him or her in the one most critical moment of need? Does it overwhelm you with guilt and shame?
While my head might repeatedly tell me these tales, my heart is finding this is not the case. I have a little fawn teaching me this lesson on the angelversary of my son’s passing.
On this morning, exactly five years ago, my son Tristan’s overdosed body lay lifeless and alone in a retreat center bathroom. My body had woken up at 4 a.m. with a terrible feeling of sorrow for my son, but I did not know where he was or what had happened.
Today I am sitting on my deck and the sun is rising over the housetop. Not six feet away is a sweet little fawn. She is curled up, hidden among the lilies and hostas, all alone. No mother anywhere to be seen. Why did that mother abandon her darling Bambi? What was wrong with her?
Fortunately my friend Kay had told me, a few years after she lost her own son to suicide, that a fawn was left alone on her lawn for a couple of days. Kay made some calls and learned that does often leave their babies hidden somewhere so they can go feed. This is normal, natural, instinctual behavior. They can only do what they know how to do. Could she lose her fawn? Sure. My house is surrounded by homeowners with large dogs. Will she? Not likely. Does have been doing this for millennia. Yes, some come back to find their babies are forever gone, but clearly not all do, or there would not be so many deer. Their behavior works for the majority.
Our behavior with our loved ones would ordinarily have worked. The problem is, the drugs now available are not normal or natural. Our bodies are not designed to consume them, yet somehow many of our loved ones got trapped in the lies that these substances would be cool, would help them feel better, would help take away their pain. Instead, their pain was multiplied, and so has our own.
If you hadn’t lost him or her on that horrible day, it probably would have happened on another horrible day. The addiction overpowers every other consideration.
If you loved your dear one—and clearly you did, or you would not be grieving—then you did enough.
How Can We Help Protect Ourselves from Covid-19?
As the bereaved, we are automatically much more prone to bodily inflammation.
A relatively new study in Psychoneuroendocrinology (Vol. 93, July 2018, pp. 65-71), and reported by Forbes (Oct. 30, 2018), found that “the blood samples of those who were experiencing ‘elevated grief,’ including feeling like life had lost its meaning, had inflammation levels 17% higher than those who didn’t feel that way (measured by levels of inflammatory cytokine proteins). And the top one-third of the grieving group had levels nearly 54% higher than the bottom one-third.” [1]
These inflammatory cytokine proteins can multiply quickly and cause a “cytokine storm” in Covid-19 patients. According to Randy Cron, M.D., Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham, “Cytokines are inflammatory immunologic proteins that are there to fight off infections and ward off cancers… But when they are out of control, they can make you very ill.” (Forbes Apr 16, 2020, article on cytokine storms and covid-19 patients) [2]
Also of concern is that inflammation contributes to almost every disease in older adulthood, according to Chris Fagundes, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice University. [3]
Therefore, perhaps the best defense against Covid-19—and other illnesses—is a good offense: reduce the elevated inflammation levels in our bodies. This can help us stay healthier overall anyway—so we don’t end up with more grief about our own bodies.
Following my 26 tips for improving your immunity, which you can find on my Thriver Soup blog, I will next be offering ideas for reducing inflammation in our bodies to help us better cope with the terrible hand we have been dealt.
Here is a foundation for better understanding inflammation from my book, Thriver Soup:
“When threatened by wounds, irritation, or infections, cells inflame to assist with the transition back to health. A molecule called nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kB), which normally resides in cell cytoplasm, moves into the cell’s nucleus (hence the name ‘nuclear factor’) and generates redness, heat, swelling, and pain. When the body heals, the NF-kB molecules return to the cell cytoplasm.
“NF-kB, however, also provokes the genes involved in creating chronic inflammation, which generally does not help the body heal. Instead, long-term heat and swelling becomes an open invitation to cancer. One-sixth of all cancers are directly linked to chronic inflammation. Most, if not all, cancers have unusually high levels of active NF-kB. This protein is considered their missing link. Researchers, for example, found that NF-kB regulates the inflammatory cascade necessary for breast cancer cells to proliferate and metastasize.
“Fortunately, inflammation can be smothered through diet and supplements. NF-kB can be suppressed by phytochemical-rich spices, vegetables, and fruit. Antioxidants can block the proteins so they don’t move into cell nuclei. Vitamins C, D, and E, curcumin (found in the spice turmeric), the herb ashwagandha, pomegranate extract, garlic extract, ginger root, green tea, omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil, and isoflavones found primarily in beans can be effective cellular firefighters. I found such a diet helped reduce my discomfort during treatment, decreasing my need for pain medications.
“When brought back under control, NF-kB provides the body with important healing mechanisms…. Keep the chronic flames doused with an anti-inflammatory diet to help preserve your internal landscape.
“Thriver Soup Ingredient:
“Ask your doctor to measure inflammation markers in your blood (C-reactive protein and albumin). [Cancer] ‘patients with the lowest level of inflammation were twice as likely as the others to live through the next several years,’ according to long-term studies by oncologists at the Glasgow Hospital in Scotland.”
Thriver Soup, Pg. 174
Sources:
Hope of Notre Dame
Do you feel like Notre Dame Cathedral, gutted by the fires of grief? Do you feel like a husk of your former self, burned out, weakened and emptied?
That’s how I felt after my son Tristan drug me through two years of addiction and then a deadly heroin overdose. The terrible sorrow left me completely bereft, weak and vulnerable.
Our Lady of Paris is now weak and vulnerable. Yet when I see post-fire pictures of the church’s interior, the altar and cross are still standing. The deepest heart of the cathedral is still intact.
After my son died, my heart was broken, yet still intact. I did everything I could to grieve in a healthy way, just as the firefighters did everything they could to salvage what they could of the massive church.
Now this monument is at its most vulnerable and most in need. And so are we while dealing with our devastating losses. Yet people are coming forward to rebuild her, as people came forward to help me rebuild my life, giving generously from their hearts and their time. I hope you are blessed with the same support. To turn down assistance is a disservice to ourselves and others, just as it would be a disservice to Notre Dame to not rebuild her.
And as a service to my own soul–especially because I had been sent home to die from cancer in 2011–I have done some bucket-list traveling. This past fall I was most fortunate to visit Notre Dame de Paris, specifically to light a candle before the crown of thorns, a Christian relic experts say dates to the first century. I wanted to pray for us and for our loved ones lost to addiction. To me, the crown represents an injury to the head sustained by Christ–just as our loved ones sustained injuries to their brains. I sought, for us all, the compassion of The Compassionate One, one who bore a head injury and who was intimately acquainted with sorrows and grief.
Fortunately, the crown of thorns was spared from the fire. And so was the sculpture of Mother Mary with Jesus, and the symbol of resurrection above them.
Let Our Lady stand as a symbol of hope for you—that after the phoenix fire has burned its destructive path, we can rebuild and restore our lives, with our hearts still intact. It will take time and effort, but we are worth it.
And that is what our dear ones would want for us.
Irises: Rainbow Bridges between Heaven and Earth
As soon as the goddess entered and brushed away the dreams that hovered around her, her brightness lit up all the cave.
“The Halcyon Birds,” Bulfinch’s Mythology
In the Greek myth “The Halcyon Birds,” the goddess Iris dons her robe of many colors, then paints the sky with a rainbow on her way down to Earth. As Iris’ radiance fills the sleeping god’s cave, she delivers her message to him that a king had died. Then she returns by her multi-hued arc to the heavens.
Bridge between heaven and earth
The iridescent rainbow goddess Iris represents a connection between earth and heaven through the bows she creates with her robe—the female version of an Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat—when she traverses the air.
Iris blossoms bear her name
The iris flower bears her name. Symbolically, this bloom bridges earth with heaven because of its great beauty. It represents the ability to communicate messages with those who reside with (the) God(s).
If you have lost a loved one to addiction, the iris might take on some extra significance for you.
Opioid overdose
Irises have been growing for decades at Grailville in Loveland, Ohio, which has served as a spiritual bridge between the human and the Divine.
It is sacred ground upon which my 19-year-old son Tristan inspired one final time before overdosing on heroin.
Buckets of irises
Buckets of extra irises from the property found their way into my little car in 2017, thanks to Mary Lu.
They now are planted in Tristan’s garden behind my home. From sacred ground to hallowed ground, the irises connect the spiritual with the profane, the light with the dark, the living with the deceased.
They help bring the Spirit to my son who sought the Spirit in the false highs of heroin. The flowers now provide a symbolic way to communicate with him.
Iris symbolism
The iris has another symbolic connection for me. Early usage of the French royal symbol, the fleur-de-lis/fleur-de-lys, probably referred to the iris, which grew abundantly along the river Lys, rather than to the lily. The fleur-de-lis is a symbol for the Boy Scouts, in which Tristan earned the Arrow of Light honor.
The first Siberian iris has begun beaming its iridescent radiance this spring. There is no more meaningful addition to his garden.
Easing Grieving:
To invoke the energy of the rainbow, or of communication with your loved ones on the Other Side, perhaps meditate with a drop of iris essence or essential oil on your forehead between your eyebrows, or with an iris blossom next to you.
Sources:
Richard Martin, ed., “The Halcyon Birds,” Bulfinch’s Mythology (New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1991), p. 65
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur-de-lis, November 1, 2017