Grieving in My Own Time
After my mom died, I was flattened. Exhausted, I wanted to wait three months, or maybe even a year, before doing something in her memory. My brother kindly agreed. During that time, I recalled someone telling me, “Do it your way.” I remember thinking that wouldn’t be possible. I pictured cousins gathered in black while I’d say, “Okay, now we’re going out to plant flowers for my mom” – in Arizona, where the bunnies and squirrels would eat them anyway. No, that wouldn’t go over. In any case, it wasn’t to be. I wasn’t only exhausted; I was traumatized by the circumstances of her death.
Over two years later, I asked my brother how he felt about not having done anything to mark her passing. He said he had wanted to, but didn’t want to wait beyond two months. Since I didn’t want to do anything early on, he had let it go. I felt terrible leaving his office, feeling like I had taken something away from him. When I got in my car, I cried buckets. I called a few friends. Every one of them reminded me that it would’ve been impossible for me to pull anything together after she died. I probably stayed in bed more during that first year or two than anyone realized. I had been a good pretender. Looking functional with a heart that was shattered, living in the literal desert where getting outside to nature for respite was not an option in the triple-digit heat.
Organizing Memorials for Others
In the following years, more close friends died. I organized an online celebration for one of them since his worldwide friends couldn’t easily travel to Alaska for a memorial. Over forty people attended. About a year after that, the organization of a world-renowned teacher reached out to me. This teacher’s brother had died, and they knew about the event I’d organized for my friend the previous year. They asked me to take the lead in organizing the celebration for the teacher’s brother. I was honored and nervous at the same time. This would be a large international event. It took months to plan – including videos, music, a lineup of speakers, and communicating with people across the globe multiple times. I facilitated the six-hour online event, directing and spotlighting the lineup of speakers, the music, the playing of the two videos, and managing the chat. It was attended by 107 people from eight countries across five continents. Afterward, I edited the video of the event down to two hours, and posted it online for those who could not attend live. It had gone well. I privately thought how ironic it was that I would be organizing memorial-type celebrations for others but hadn’t done one for my own mom. When I told a lifelong family friend about these two events. She said, “Why don’t you do that for your mom?” “But it has been four years,” I replied. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’d love talk about your mom and share the stories about visiting your home as a child.” I told her I’d think about it.
A Seed of Possibility: A Celebration for My Mom
The seed was planted. The fifth year after my mom’s passing seemed perfect, plus it would also coincide with what would have been her 100th birthday. I emailed my brother. He thought it was an interesting idea, but he didn’t want to go back. He worried about what people would think, that I hadn’t moved on, and that it was ludicrous to celebrate someone years after their death. That no one would care or want to attend. He said that he might not even attend. Due to his less-than-enthusiastic response, I didn’t do it that year. On my mom’s birthday, I cried. There was no one to be with, no one to celebrate her with, no one to share stories with or hear their stories about her.
I would do it the sixth year. Not because I needed it anymore, but because I wanted to do it, plain and simple. In that interim year, when nothing was created, more people died who I would like to have come. I could not wait longer. I called a few people to get their thoughts. One friend thought it might re-traumatize me. But that wasn’t true, and I felt myself arguing with her in my head, trying to explain my truth: The prospect of it excited me. It brought me joy and a sense of connection. Not doing it would have only perpetuated parts of the trauma.
Everyone else thought it was a great idea and were eager to participate. One friend said to do it every year, or every five or ten years. Another person encouraged me by saying time did not matter, one year or ten, it was not about linear time. He also told me to remember why I was doing it—for myself. I knew that wholeheartedly. My mother was at peace. She didn’t need this, and my brother wasn’t interested. This would be for me, to celebrate and wrap a warm shawl of stories around my own heart with friends and family who remembered her.
Choosing a day became an issue. Yet another family friend died, and his family wanted to do his memorial on the weekend I had chosen for my mom’s event. Fortunately, they changed their date. I invited people. I sifted through hundreds of pictures, if not thousands, to create a video and find the right music for it. I considered what I’d say, how the flow of the event would go, and I asked a friend to sing. The day arrived, and several people who wanted to attend couldn’t make it, including the friend who was supposed to sing. Fortunately, I had made a recording of his voice for the meditation we would do near the end.
A Spiritual and Personal Celebration: Leaning Into Love
Stories were shared, and my brother and his son both came and enthusiastically contributed. I talked about my mom’s spiritual life, and of the spiritual life she and I shared together. I relayed how I remembered looking at her picture a day or two after she died, thinking about how much bigger she was than all the stories and events of her life. I cherished the stories and who she was for all of us, but I also felt an unconditional part of her that wasn’t attached to the stories of her life anymore. I felt as if after she passed that her identity, free from the cumbersome body, grew to its highest spiritual stature. That she could now celebrate her own life and beam that love to all of us. I shared how I felt her say, “Lean into love.” And how that led me to write a poem-song about leaning into love. I told those gathered how when I felt scared, upset, hurt, or anxious, I went to that love, her love, my dad’s love, the love of many gone on. And I hoped that each person there, in attendance, had something like that—a place of comfort, strength, and peace, a space of safety, and of love they could lean into.
I also shared the conversation I had with a neighbor the day after she died, when I used the pronoun “we” when talking about my mom and me. How I stopped abruptly, thinking how the “we” was no longer, and how odd that would sound to another. My dear neighbor kindly said, “You will always be a “we” with your mom.” I invited everyone at the celebration to put their hands on their heart as the recording of my friend’s singing voice filled our screens. The “we” was still here. We had become a community in our gathering, celebrating someone we cared about and loved. I asked those present to breathe into their connection with my mom or to breathe into their connection to someone or something they loved, remembering that the love still exists. And then to send that love out to the world through their hearts.
Timeless Love and the Power of Stories
I didn’t call it a memorial. I called it A Celebration of Love in the Form of Stories about Cathy. Because love isn’t bound by time or tradition, and it lives through the stories we share. It had been over six years since she passed, and though it’s not the norm to celebrate someone so long after their death, time cannot diminish meaning—or love. In fact, the timing made it even more profoundly meaningful. I wasn’t swept away by tears or overwhelmed by sorrow; instead, I was present—able to savor each moment and every story with deep appreciation. The people who gathered were moved, deeply touched by the experience. Though there were tears, it wasn’t simply sadness that filled our eyes—it was love bursting forth as we shared and connected. The room was filled with collective joy and a profound sense of honoring her spirit.
I believe there are countless opportunities to create celebrations of love through the sharing of stories. And in the end, I did it my way, just as someone had suggested to me early on. I created a gathering that was expansively loving and deeply meaningful. It was a moment in eternity encapsulating the depth and breadth of who my mom was—and still is. Love held, and continues to hold, the essence of her spirit, and it felt right to remember her in this way.
Beyond Closure: Grief as Part of a Spiritual Path
In the weeks that followed, a few people asked if I had “closure.” No. Closure isn’t a word I use. How do you close your heart on love? For me, grief is part of a spiritual path. It’s the sweet rawness of what and who is missed, of what and who is forever loved. I had a feeling of completion, but completion isn’t closure. I had done something that connected my heart to others through my most precious gift in life, my mom. The time and space to deeply share about our spiritual life, with people I might not ordinarily share with, was like a coming out party in self-expression and being fully who I am. And I had defied what people thought was strange or different, creating a celebration for someone who had died six years before. Like my parents before me, I marched to the beat of my own drum. A resonance with myself through community, having been witnessed, a greater assuredness, a feeling of completion within, I felt full.
Three months later, the family friend who had encouraged me to do this was hospitalized and in rehab for an extended stay due to life-threatening bacterial meningitis. How fragile our human life is, yet how strong it becomes through the weaving of our connecting stories. When we finally spoke, I thanked her for encouraging me to celebrate my mom, and she told me how meaningful it had been for her. It felt right to gather and share stories of my mom in community, as my mom was both a lover of storytelling and a great storyteller herself, and I follow in her footsteps today.
Tell me a fact and I’ll learn.
Tell me a truth and I’ll believe.
But tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.
– Native American Proverb
A Call to Creativity: Your Connection to Story
Do you have a creative spark that keeps nudging you awake at night, urging you to bring it to life, or a story you want to share in a unique and meaningful way? If you need help bringing that story to life—whether it’s a book, a speech, or a one-person show—I’m here to guide you in crafting something special.
If you’re looking for a heartfelt storyteller or speaker, I create and share stories that inspire, uplift, and bring laughter and peace to hearts.
There are countless opportunities to create celebrations of love through the sharing of stories. They matter. Your creativity matters. Like gossamer fabric, creativity and stories move and shimmer, revealing that our deepest truth is love.
Your creativity is a gift to yourself and to a world in need.
Let’s connect—contact me to explore how we can bring your vision to life!