A blessing for anyone moving forward after loss

A benediction before we begin (again)

preface

I wrote the first draft of this during the pandemic, after Chase and I had closed our business, after my dad had passed away unexpectedly, when I began to resent the inevitable new beginnings that followed the change I didn’t ask for.

This January, I came across that dusty draft and began to rework it as a new years post, framing it as a more spacious invitation to starting again (or not) in defiance of our clean slate adages and fresh start calls to action. But, as I wrote, I was also waiting for biopsy results and when it came time to publish (or not), it felt like I was tempting fate to speak like I knew what I was talking about, not knowing if I’d even agree with what I wrote in a week or two. It felt arrogant and dangerous to write as if those years of loss were behind me when I had no idea what was ahead of me.

So the draft went back into the archives.

The biopsy results arrived in my inbox.

And I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

That was six months ago. Six months and, though I am still very much in the messy middle of shock and survival, I am also holding tightly, stubbornly, to desire and creation.

I wrote about this for the first time recently¹ and it felt like a shaky hand, tentatively reopening the doors into my world, and I realized how homesick I have been for this place– this digital home I built for curious experimentation and playful exploration, for expression and connection. I know I am not alone in needing more of that right now.

I looked at the calendar and was shocked to see that July is half over and my first thought was that it’s almost time for the 2nd Annual Camp AweGust– one of my favorite parts of last year. I was watching season 3 of The Bear and I kept thinking how many of the characters would be great candidates for my fictional advice column.

With a quiet knowing and great uncertainty, I can say that I am ready to be ready to move forward.

And, so, before I begin (again), I’d like to offer a blessing. For all of us standing on those jagged edges of loss, looking out at the wide open nothingness and deciding what we will make of it (or not).

a blessing for anyone moving forward after loss

Ready or not, here we are.

We who have lost so much, some of us (almost) everything. We who are trying to figure out what to do, how to do this, these impossible things– moving forward, making something out of what’s left.

Where there are no instructions, may there be a blessing. A wish for what’s ahead, something wholehearted and honest and expansive enough to hold the gaping truth: that this isn’t fair, that we don’t want to do this, that we will never be ready, that there is no making this right or better or easier.

Something like this…

First, let us mourn. Deeply and often and then off and on maybe forever. Because every loss takes with it a whole lifetime.

May we choose who we want to be and how we want to move forward. Even if we did not choose to be here in the first place, even if we do not want any of this, even if it takes a really long time before anything that follows feels like a choice.

May we absolve ourselves of the guilt-bearing regrets that threaten to haunt us and apply grace to the ghosts left in their place.

May the destruction of our lives (as we knew them) and the wreckage left in its wake relieve us of our obligations and attachments- to the shoulds that kept us small and busy, to the roles we assumed without question, and to the baggage we stored in boxes, full of outgrown things and hand-me-downs that never fit in the first place. 

May we rebuild here, right where we are– if we want to. May we walk away and leave it all behind– if we want to. 

May we run away and return as many times as we need to. May we remember that the healing is in the return.

May we stand still as long as we have to– in reverence, in denial, in fear, in grief. May we honor the strength and honesty it requires to stay with what is.

May we remember that strength can also be softness, can be falling apart, can be just being. May strength never become a burden we think we have to hold up.

May we recognize our own bravery even when we resent that we have to be brave. Bravery, we know, might be admirable but it’s rarely asked for.

May we be held with the kind of support that feels like a hammock, the kind of love that feels like a hug.

May the loneliness never be aloneness. And, in those moments of unavoidable isolation, may we turn ourselves inward. May this feel like a homecoming, the safety and belonging we’ve been searching for. In this, may we become a better friend to ourselves.

May we leave meaning out of it, even if everyone else wants it to mean something. Even if we do, too. Because it would be simpler if it did.

May we remember that magic and surprise and delight are also born from the unexpected. May there be space for these surprising joys in our heart's crowded room.

May we find an honest hope to hold onto, one that feels more like beauty and possibility in the present and not something left to a future we don’t trust. A hope that knows the pain is not erasable, that nothing is ever permanent, and yet, still, here we are.

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