Today marks a return.

It's not like I ever really left because to leave this life, to stop living and loving fully, would not have been a way to honor me or my father: he cherished his life too much.  Yet with my father's death a part of my heart, attention and intention turned inward.  I needed time to grieve and mourn.  My mother needed me as she faced being on this planet, her home, in the daily-ness without her life companion of 60 years by her side.  My sisters needed me as we faced losing our number one supporter and a source of unconditional love for our entire lives.  I need them.  And I needed me.  I needed space to heal from this loss in my life as well as celebrate his continuing love that fills every minute of my days even though he is not here physically to share it with me in the ways that I came to know and depend on as his daughter.

A Safe Haven For Healing And Shared Grief

One insight I have from this experience is this: while I don't claim to be an expert on aging or disease, I suspect a significant part of both of these experiences is ungrieved losses.  And I happen to live in a society that doesn't do so good with loss and grief.  

Some cultures have set times to mark periods of grief and mourning.  One example is Judaism.  In this faith, the immediate seven days after a loved one is buried you observe or "sit" Shiva -- an intense period of mourning.  And then there is Sheloshim which marks the first thirty days of mourning for a spouse.  There are structures in place to support the family during this period of deep grieving.  In Mexico, especially in regions with a stronger native presence, Dia de los Muertos is a 3,000 year old celebration of death.  Family members clean and decorate the gravesite.They light up the night with candles and music and share stories of those who have passed.  Altars or ofrendas with incense and marigolds along with photographs, favorite foods, drinks and past-times lure the dead back to join in this all-night party for the entire community.  The belief is a person only truly dies when one is forgotten.  This ritual is about remembering.  And while these markers can be arbitrary in some ways -- there isn't a magical end or completion to loss at seven days, thirty days, one year, or ten years -- they carve out structured time and community support to process grief.  Like a Brush Arbor in the times of US slavery, they offer a safe haven for healing. They offer permission, an acknowledgement, a time of grace for shared grief. 

In my cultural and religious experiences, as a Catholic, as a Latina but especially someone born and raised in the US, when my father died, I was at a loss -- pun intended.  The established rituals include: writing the obituary, capturing something of my father's life in 150 words or less; preparing a memorial service to honor his legacy and creating a space for family and community who loved him to celebrate and mourn together; and following his wishes for preparing his body after death.  These were complete in a week.  My grieving wasn't.

Sometimes in the absence of rituals and structures, I made them up. They weren't necessarily original.  Still these markers, spaces and rituals I created became important on my grieving journey.  

 The Healing Power Of Remembering

During my last visit to Puerto Rico as a family, just a few months before his death, my father had asked me to clean up the tomb where his mother, brother and sister were laid to rest.  The tomb where he too would be laid to rest.  At the time of his request, I thought that would be still a long way off.  In the March following his death, I returned to Puerto Rico in preparation for his return to the land of his birth -- every immigrant's dream.  Ordering his tomb marker and working on the gravesite with family and family friends, and sometimes, importantly, by myself, I had a physical way to connect to death and my own mortality.  Being in the cemetery, around my ancestors, was surprisingly reassuring.  I gained a different perspective on being part of a greater whole.  And the healing power of remembering. 

 Thanksgiving was the one year anniversary of learning of my father's prognosis.  I returned to Tucson to go through my father's things.  From yellowed photos to vintage suits (he still had and wore a suit from when my parents me 60 years ago!), from well-used T-shirts to favorite PJs -- we used this time to share memories, laughter, love and tears.  It was a process of reconnecting and letting go all at the same time.  We also used the occasion of this anniversary to thank the staff in the Tucson Medical Center ward who cared so lovingly for us and our father before he went into hospice.  They touched our family at a critical juncture in our lives and it was bittersweet joy to come full circle with them.  

My family and I planned a reunion in Puerto Rico for the one-year anniversary of my dad's death and his final return.  With our family on the mainland and island, we reunited on Christmas Day in Aguada, Puerto Rico to remember together.  We used this occasion to honor not only my father, but also his two brothers who had also died earlier the same year, and the others who rest together in the family gravesite -- the matriarch, Mama Minga; one sister, Tacia; and one brother, Titi.  Amazing things happened that day: shifts in too-long-held grudges; introductions to the newest member of the family, a great-great-grandson; singing, dancing and celebrating life across faiths (my father and many of my family are Jehovah's Witnesses an the rest are mostly Catholic); and healing on levels that many of us could not possibly have predicted.  And for me?  I felt a release and deep satisfaction knowing we had fulfilled my father's request to rest alongside his mother in the land of his birth.  Living fully, loving without restraint, making new memories and stories together, while remembering and grieving the loss openly and without apology -- there is no contradiction here for me. 

 Walk In Your Own Shoes

 In my social justice and alliance building practice, I often hear participants in my workshop say: "I don't know what it's like to be (fill in the blank.)  I haven't walked in their shoes."  My wise and gentle mentor, Lillian Roybal Rose, would respond: "You don't have to walk in anyone else's shoes.  Walk in your own."  I understand the importance of this lesson in a more intimate way now.  As much as I didn't want to walk this path, if I wasn't fully present in it I wouldn't be able to empathize with others in their loss.

 In the world I live in I am constantly asked to forget, to move on, go forward and even "get over it," "that's enough of that now."  I think people have been confused by how much I continue to remember.  And by how much I want to remember, even though it may bring tears or grief or acute feelings of loss to the surface.  Some even think I'm "living in the past."  What I have come to embrace is that living and loving fully in the face of this loss also means grieving fully.

 In order to love as fully as I choose to love, as I believe is possible for every human, I welcome this level of grief.  I believe in love as a transformative force and movement.  And grief is her companion.  As I have learned from Buddhist teaching and was so poignantly illustrated in the movie, "Inside Out:" joy doesn't exist without sadness.  And I have come to know: love doesn't exist without grief.

I am grateful to each and every one of you who walked this path with me -- I couldn't have done it without you nor would I have wanted to.  When my  patterned default has been competence, you allowed me to not have it together and, more importantly, to need you.  You showed me that vulnerability is not only a way towards each other when that tired old voice in my head is trying to convince me I'm on my own, it is a pathway to being present and an essential element of healing -- so that tired old voice weakens and eventually is permanently and finally silenced.  I am even thankful to those of you who struggled to be with or stay with me in this path.  My father use to say:  "Love people for who they are, not for who they are not."  Each of us does the very best we can.  And this case is no exception.  Death and loss bring up so much for each of us -- and while I cannot know what it has exactly brought up for you, I can decide to love you and accept what you can bring as a gift in my life.  None of us get it right all the time, every time.  And sometimes when we get it wrong we can be vulnerable together and that, I think, is right.

 What is the "right" amount of time to mourn?  When should we "get back to life as usual?"  What does that even mean?  And is that the point?  I don't pretend to have answers to these questions.  I'm not sure there are answers or that these are the right questions.  I know that I have reached a sense of completion with this cycle of grief.  I appreciate all of you who held this unsanctioned healing space for me and my family to mourn our loss.  I am ready to mark a return.  Thank you for helping remember I have a place to return to and for the warm welcome home.