#onloss

****ON LOSS**** 💫💫💫 Even with all the work I've done, and continue to do, every time I hear of someone losing a loved one; especially a parent, my heart breaks all over again. 💔 💫 You really can't understand this type of pain unless you experience it. I'm going on 12 years without my Dad's physical presence and here are some things I'll share with you in hopes it will help someone. I'll rip the band-aid off first and then go from there.... 💫 1. This pain/void will never go away. 2. You will be okay. 3. You will adjust to your new reality in time. 4. Do your work. 5. People will say things that may upset you. 6. Grieve and don't let anyone rush your process. 7. This is a journey. Good days and bad. 8. You will get support from people you don't expect versus from those that you do. Don't take it personally. Sometimes people don't know how to act in these situations. 9. It's okay to cry and miss them especially on holidays and special occasions. 10. They would want you to live your life. 💫 My personal self disclosure: every wedding I go to and see a Dad walking his daughter down the aisle, I cry. It's the little things I miss the most: corny jokes, his advice, his cooking, etc. When I see people with their Dad I get sad because my new reality is I will never have those moments. Please cherish your loved ones while you can. Make peace where you can. Life is too short. 🙏🏽💜 #wednesdaywisdom #onloss #losingalovedone #losingaparent #foodforthought #forgiveness #grief #griefsupport #griefjourney #selfdisclosure #lifecoaching #lifecoach #foreveradaddysgirl #iloveyoudad (at Bowie, Maryland) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_2JEj6AFrX/?igshid=1xn8svpfnj3e

Even with all the work I've done, and continue to do, every time I hear of someone losing a loved one especially a parent my heart breaks all over again. 💔 You really can't understand this type of pain unless you experience it. I'm going on 11 years without my Dad's physical presence and here are some things I'll share with you in hopes it will help someone. I'll rip the band-aid off first and then go from there.... 1. This pain/void will never go away. 2. You will be okay. 3. You will adjust to your new reality in time. 4. Do your work. 5. People will say things that may upset you. 6. Grieve and don't let anyone rush your process. 7. This is a journey. Good days and bad. 8. You will get support from people you don't expect versus from those that you do. Don't take it personally. Sometimes people don't know how to act in these situations. 9. It's okay to cry and miss them especially on holidays and special occasions. 10. They would want you to live your life. 🌟 My personal self disclosure: every wedding I go to and see a Dad walking his daughter down the isle, I cry. It's the little things I miss the most: corny jokes, his advice, his cooking, etc. When I see people with their Dad I get sad because my new reality is I will never have those moments. Please cherish your loved ones while you can. Make peace where you can. Life is too short. 🙏🏽💜 #wednesdaywisdom #onloss #losingalovedone #losingaparent #foodforthought #forgiveness #grief #griefsupport #griefjourney #selfdisclosure #lifecoaching #lifecoach #foreveradaddysgirl #iloveyoudad (at New Jersey) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bur6DDunTFF/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1n7qv4u3mcc1g

I'm writing a series of poems on grief, reading a lot as well, & I came upon this piece. Thought I'd share. What do you do when you are the one left behind? Still here, still living. My children's father/my ex-husband was a full year younger than me when he died in plane crash last August. I was the one that went to the scene & talked with the coroner. Healing moments have been brief & far between. My adult children won't speak to me. His girlfriend at the time blocked me on social media. I was not invited to say goodbye, despite having him in my life for over 37 years. Yet, I am not bitter because I know their pain. He was my friend/my first love/the father of my children. My grief is very real. The only way I have to express myself is through poetry. I'm sure there are others that have gone through the same thing. This is for you. Stay strong. Live in love. Send healing energy and light to others in pain. I know my ex would have wanted it that way. Afterall, he chose to love/ marry me/father my children. He knew the little girl me. He saw me grow from there. I have 2 poems coming out in Westwind (UCLA) in his honor soon. In the mean time... Making a Fist BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE     We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.                                                                   —Jorge Luis Borges For the first time, on the road north of Tampico, I felt the life sliding out of me, a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear. I was seven, I lay in the car watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass. My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin. “How do you know if you are going to die?” I begged my mother. We had been traveling for days. With strange confidence she answered, “When you can no longer make a fist.” Years later I smile to think of that journey, the borders we must cross separately, stamped with our unanswerable woes. I who did not die, who am still living, still lying in the backseat behind all my questions, clenching and opening one small hand. #poetsofinstagram #mondaymotivation #poets #onloss #andthenyoudie #thoseleftbehind #grief #grieving https://www.instagram.com/p/BsWY16WH5wk/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1rjjytjaww5kr

Where are the people who aren't scared to sing Karoke? Where are the people who will dance gladly to any Michael Jackson song BECAUSE he was the King of Pop?! Why do I always find myself surrounded by people too scared to be happy? Too scared to laugh without the help of a stiff drink? So scared they have to self-medicate themselves before having fun? Self-medicate before fun?! I don't understand it. Anxiety, even social or whatever other kinds exist, is a normal so human emotion. It is essential to the human experience. I thought I had more anxiety than others. And at one point, this was true. At one point it was debilitating. And now, Now? It's manageable. Now? It's better. And I'm so glad that I never even thought of turning to alcohol. I don't want to be numb, because I've been that too. I WANF TO FEEL. Feel it all. Nervous, excitement, worry, irritation, I want to be so in the moment tgat I have trouble speaking because it's all so over stimulating and so right now. Right now. Right here. Feel it all. Because the alternative, is____ And it feels like____ And I don't want to go back to that. But it sure would be easier, to be surrounded by people who are as embracing and lively, so lively, so joyful, so here. Where are the people who are so here? Because it would be easier to be 'here' too. Instead of feeling like I'm 'carrying whole rooms' to joy. Whole rooms whose first instinct isn't to pick up a mike and join me but to- Take pictures. Make videos. Thereby somehow separating themselves from the experience. Sucking it down for a later date. Taking a piece of me to enjoy and savor later. Where are the people with bucketfuls of joy who don't want to just 'take' from me? I think it's imperative to my progress. I think it's inherent to how I feel better. Selfishly guarding the pieces of oneself. Greedily gathering then up to patch oneself Sew oneself Keep oneself together I can't keep myself together if they are taking from my buckets of life. Of energy. Stealing my joy. Asking me to heal their wounds. Help them feel Pure joy. Christmas Day means nothing. Chocolate is mere sensation. A blade of grass waves in the wind. Without carrying your own joy, these things become uneventful. Unbeaufiful. Unremarkable. It's not the thing itself that brings joy, but the person experiencing it. Letting themselves snatch a moment of happiness. I canot make a boring work event fun. I can however choose to have fun. And, I cannot make you feel better about your approach to life. About the troubles you carry. About your struggles. I have to let that go. I have to let people, people who are hungry for something more and our takers till they get it--go. Because I have got to keep myself together. So. Where are the people with themselves held together? I want to have fun with them. I want to know we are present together. That we aren't taking from one another, just sharing space. The ones willing to dance and sing Karoke, unafraid.