Creating in active grief spiral

Hi wonderful humans, 

my winter has been oh so wintery and I feel a strong outpouring of emotions as I navigate the loss of my Papa. 

it is strange to lose a Grandparent who played a parental role, partially because of the layered nature of life with my parents and because it is hard to convey the feeling fully. I knew his death was coming about a year ago, visiting him after spending 2 months abroad I noticed such a drastic difference in his health. I felt like I needed to change how much I relied on him, to show him - it is okay for you to go now. I watched as our phone calls got shorter, hospital visits became more frequent, and the decay that naturally occurs in a person getting older. 

Ram Dass speaks about how the best thing you can do for a dying person is be completely present with them, when caring for or visiting them to simply turn to the moment however uncomfortable or dull it is. Hospital rooms do not make for light conversation, but finding ways to center in their reality and seeing them for what they are rather than what they did for you in the past or how much they’ve meant to you. Because that, what has been, already lives in you. To create a new memory with a dying person is sacred, it is the closest you will likely ever be with them. 

I experienced my Nanny’s death more close up, spending nearly every day with her the two months up to her passing. I witnessed every stage of her illness and decline, and I was holding her hand when she took her last breath. It was a powerful experience as a 17 year old, to be so close to her in these final moments. I stuffed away a lot of my grief afterwards with a reckless summer into university filled with drinking and joints. It has taken years to fully uncoil. 

So to be further away, older, and more intentional in my grief is not easier but more potent. I feel the month of January has rapidly disappeared, the world is going quicker than I am. Coated in the pain of continued genocide, ICE raids in the US, global destruction and being at a new job that doesn’t really inspire me - I’m hanging on by a thread.

But I feel really proud of myself for feeling it fully, I’m excited to step into a new month and let my year really begin. It won’t feel lighter, but I feel ready to start again. Welcoming art in slowly. I attended dance classes (which hit some sore spots to say the least,) I made stamps, and have been doodling occasionally. 

The art is mostly in how I think, feel, experience it all, my mind, my life, my body. These are powerful spirals - and I’m trying to embrace their ever evolving paths. 

With love, 

abbey