I'll Be Waving Forever

This is a talk about losing people we love with our entire hearts. It’s so painful, but we don’t last forever, and neither does anyone else. When we lose people who have loved us unconditionally, the way my Aunt Louise loved me, it really hurts. If you’re someone who has lost a number of important people in a short amount of time (this can happen when you hit the “middle years”) one loss can open the portal to all the others. It’s like a river of grief and somehow you have to learn how to let the river flow through you. You have to let it soften you.

In some ways, grief and loss teach you to really live - to be certain the people you cherish know how you feel, every single day. When you understand how fragile life is, and how short, it’s an invitation to use your time wisely - to say the scary things out loud sometimes, even if you don’t get the outcome you want. To do the work that feels important. To not wait for “things to calm down” to really start living.

As much as it hurts to accept that you won’t get to hug certain people again, I am a big believer that love doesn’t die. I feel my mother with me all the time, and sometimes I feel her energy moving through me. It’s not the same as getting to pick up the phone and call her, but it’s meaningful. My relationship with her still exists because she’s still my mother, even if she isn’t here. My feelings about our relationship keep evolving, so our relationship continues to grow and change.

I talked about my relationship with my mother because as much as I loved her - and I loved her to the ends of this earth and beyond, and still do - it was not easy, and my Aunt Louise stepped in and mothered me in a way my mother couldn’t. Maybe you’ve had people like that in your life, too. They (literally) make all the difference.

I cried a lot during this episode because I was overcome with love and grief and loss and all of it. But maybe you need a good cry. Also, if you tend to listen with small children around, please do not do that with this episode. I talked about something that happened the Christmas I was six, when I found something out in a way that I shouldn’t have. It’s about Christmas, and I do not want to be the reason your kids find out the thing I found out.

I’m heading east to be with my cousins and attend my aunt’s funeral. I know we’re going to cry a lot and hug a lot, and I might even find the bakery where she used to get me the black-and-white cookies I wrote about in this week’s essay, and buy one for myself. Maybe I can get it down over the lump in my throat. She was the best.

Sending you a lot of love. Be gentle with yourself, and call someone you love today.

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