Navigating the Complex Emotions of Loss and the Path to Healing

I watched my first teacher aka my mother take her last breath and I lost my will to continue to live.

The person who taught me so much about life: how to experience culture through food, to be gracious, to go for the life you really desire, to rollerskate, to care for myself as a woman.

I had no idea that I would or could ever be happy again.

But few can achieve this paying attention to the mainstream beliefs about death or love

I now take comfort that SHE was my mother and I experienced the beauty of her.

I do confess, I fee relief of not having to watch this once vibrant, active, vivacious, sexy woman slip in and out of a coma and almost immobile in a matter of weeks.

To say that the relief was not laden with other emotions, I will not lie - it was.

My privilege here is time space reality. I have the space to be able to pinpoint what I experienced without being in the depths of despair.

I need you to know that I understand this.

I desire for you to understand that this space that I speak from is possible for you, but it is going to go against so many paradigms we have been taught to be and do around death aka transition.

I take and assume the comfort that SHE was my mother and the beauty I experienced with her.

It is a gift I gave to myself as American culture does NOT prepare its citizens for death. Frankly, we do not face it at all really, maybe at the funeral.

Many think it is healthy to mourn the dead forever more, to prove their love and devotion; and that ‘they’ loved that person the most.

As if one could measure that.

So I took the gift, to be able to take a full breath without constriction, guilt or with a heavy heart.

In the seat of my own judgment, I took longer than I needed to get here, but alas there are no mistakes. And no time limit on healing.

For the first 2 years after her death, I pushed down any true grief with work and college.

I remained in the home she died in, I moved into my parents’ bedroom (where she died) after my father relocated (back) to Montgomery.

I had a mother-sister-friend whom I reached out to for comfort.

After about a year or so, she said the most loving (hard to hear at the time + probably so difficult for her to say) thing to me, “I love you, but I can’t do this. You need to talk with someone who can help you. You are stuck in a loop.”

I was.

It was Pandora’s box that I allowed myself to open when I spoke to her to re-inflict pain on myself.

It had become a ‘new habit’ and I barely noticed until she stated the truth.

It took me some trial and error, but I found a jewel of a therapist for me.

From this vantage point, I feel like she was more of a life coach than a traditional therapist.

Now, that I reflect on this, perhaps that experience was the seed of me becoming a Certified Life Coach.

DaRa, my therapist exposed me to meditation, visualization, journaling, dream boards, group therapy and most important of all the practice of telling the truth.

It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. I faced many challenges while under her care.

*Trigger Warning*

I seriously contemplated suicide while seeing her.

I was deeply sad. Still functioning from the outside. Communicative and expressive about my emotions.

It is fair to say that my mother’s death unmasked by lean towards sadness and I had no place to run to or hide, especially unpacking it consciously in therapy.

The biggest tool for me was and is - trusting myself. It didn’t happen overnight. I have lost relationships because of it.

I still discover new and deeper ways to strengthen my bond of trust with myself.

This walk was foundational for me to come to know and understand myself as a woman called Fonda.

I was completely in love with my mother and totally dependent on her love and approval.

Through her physical absence, I was able to unpack all that she had taught me to be AND who NOT to be. I saw/see my mother as a real woman, not a frozen in time as a martyr or ‘just’ a mother.

Which is why I am able to move through on this planet with ‘out’ her.

I learned womanhood during this time. I learned how to be a friend to myself and to others… I learned how to be lovable (again).

All because she died. I wonder if I would be this strong if she were still here. Maybe so. Maybe no. She was my sounding board.

She still IS, it just looks different.

It is my wish that if you are still reading these words and have lost someone dear to you: When you find yourself laughing and then remember ‘them’, don’t feel guilty.

Enjoy the laughter you need it and deserve every happiness - where your loved one is there is no resistance/pain or societal construct. AND this is the place where you get to ‘access’ them in the present - through your joy.

Remember earlier, I spoke about cycling through some therapists?

If you need to speak with someone, trust your gut.

Be fearless about your wellbeing, if they don’t feel like they are fit, they are prolly not.

In my professional opinion, do not regret the past OR you won’t be present.

Do feel your feelings.

Do speak with someone you trust who can assist you in moving through the levels of emotions to your healing.

Do not measure your experience against someone else’s experience.

Even if it doesn’t feel like it now, happiness is available to you, should it not be THIS moment.

The saying goes, ‘nothing lasts forever’ and the pain doesn’t have to either but you must consciously decide.

This is where your power lies.