Those anniversary feelings are really real! Every winter seems to be when our pets move on, one cat passed on Christmas Day- Butchie. 😢 It's odd when the days of celebration are tinged with grief. Everything gets all mixed up. Joy and despair.
I think there is a reason that death rates are somewhat higher during the holidays. We internally and energetically know (animals especially) that this is the time to LET GO, just as the leaves show us each autumn.
I love how Kelly Flanagan says that the two true SOUL emotions are Joy and Sadness. everything else gets stuck in the ego.
This made so much sense to me. In 2012 I went to live with my parents again on September 19. My father was dying from Stage 4 stomach cancer. I went home to be with both of them for the last month of his life. He passed away on October 18, 2012. A year prior I had a dream and learned that he would be living his last day on October 17, 2012. I wrote the information I learned in the dream down.
When I learned in early September that Dad had run out of chemo drugs to try I got ready and went home.
The point is every year since his death I have a liminal month. September 19 to October 18, just as the light becomes golden and all the leaves have turned I feel so attuned to loss that I can hear the alder leaves cry as they end the season of their growth and hit the ground. As the nights grow longer and colder I become heavier and harder like soil just starting to freeze. When the winds begin to blow like they do in autumn I feel mournful cries pressing at the back of my throat.
Just after my father died we had three weeks of powerful winds that threatened to blow over trees and send empty garbage cans sliding down the street. Everything not nailed down was in danger of being blown away.
I felt ravaged by that feeling and kept craving comfort food since I ate much less than normal in that long month of caring for my father.
That need to eat sustaining comforting food reoccurs every year in late September. I know it is an annual time to connect with my father’s spirit and spend times being rejuvenated by my abiding love for him. I usually begin knitting or crocheting a sweater during that month. I make them for my loved ones or create one to love wearing myself. And I write, some of my most vulnerable writing has been written in this liminal month. Every day I check in as many times as feels natural with my spirit connection to Dad.
I created my own grieving rituals, honouring his life and love annually. My emotions are free to be of primary importance during this time. There are many patterns to the dance of my grief that sustain me like water floats a boat and has hidden depths.🌹
thank you for sharing this beautiful expression and perspective of the time between September and October. As I read this, I felt it deep in my bones (as my shaman teacher used to say, we know things in our bone marrow).
the best way to honor Grief is to let the legacy of our loved ones live on in us and honor our ancestors as part of us. Your sweater knitting tradition (that word doesn't feel even close to really expressing what it is that you do each year) is such a wonderful tangible and energetic way to process that. Weaving together the physical with the spiritual through the yarns of your being and then turning that into something wearable that is comforting and warming. WOW! just WOW!
What a sensitive and kind thing to say in response Terri. I’ve just been feeling my way and making the sweaters is also a way of making beauty with my hands while my mind is free to roam and savour memories.
You’re welcome to try it. I learned from books and online YouTube tutorials. It’s great if you’re quite tactile and creative but it can get you rolling in tangled yarn occasionally.
My father learned to knit his own socks as a child and taught my Mom after they were married.🌹
My Hobbit (hubs) has a friend who knitted him a “story-scarf” once. It is two-sided and tells the story of The Hobbit. She won second prize at the MN State Fair for it. She’s quite amazing.
I just think it would be cool to knit my own socks and ski caps and an occasional sweater here and there.
It’s kind of cool. Some people are great with the finest sock wool. I’m better with making a knitted leg warmer that warms my ankles and I tuck in the top of my winter boots.
Thank you Nancy for your kind compliment. I write these articles mostly for myself and my own process, and I hope even one person feels validated, supported, encouraged, or inspired by them. Seems this one hit a few peeps.
Leaning into Grief is quite possibly one of the scariest and most sacred things a human can do. It's no wonder scared and sacred are the same letters rearranged.
That's a beautiful story. I love how even after everything she said it was still hard, but manageable hard. I think too often we strive for this strange kind of "happiness" not allowing ourselves to feel any kind of feeling. Hard feelings are part of life, they're just not supposed to completely take over, and you've made that clear in a beautiful way here.
Those anniversary feelings are really real! Every winter seems to be when our pets move on, one cat passed on Christmas Day- Butchie. 😢 It's odd when the days of celebration are tinged with grief. Everything gets all mixed up. Joy and despair.
I think there is a reason that death rates are somewhat higher during the holidays. We internally and energetically know (animals especially) that this is the time to LET GO, just as the leaves show us each autumn.
I love how Kelly Flanagan says that the two true SOUL emotions are Joy and Sadness. everything else gets stuck in the ego.
This made so much sense to me. In 2012 I went to live with my parents again on September 19. My father was dying from Stage 4 stomach cancer. I went home to be with both of them for the last month of his life. He passed away on October 18, 2012. A year prior I had a dream and learned that he would be living his last day on October 17, 2012. I wrote the information I learned in the dream down.
When I learned in early September that Dad had run out of chemo drugs to try I got ready and went home.
The point is every year since his death I have a liminal month. September 19 to October 18, just as the light becomes golden and all the leaves have turned I feel so attuned to loss that I can hear the alder leaves cry as they end the season of their growth and hit the ground. As the nights grow longer and colder I become heavier and harder like soil just starting to freeze. When the winds begin to blow like they do in autumn I feel mournful cries pressing at the back of my throat.
Just after my father died we had three weeks of powerful winds that threatened to blow over trees and send empty garbage cans sliding down the street. Everything not nailed down was in danger of being blown away.
I felt ravaged by that feeling and kept craving comfort food since I ate much less than normal in that long month of caring for my father.
That need to eat sustaining comforting food reoccurs every year in late September. I know it is an annual time to connect with my father’s spirit and spend times being rejuvenated by my abiding love for him. I usually begin knitting or crocheting a sweater during that month. I make them for my loved ones or create one to love wearing myself. And I write, some of my most vulnerable writing has been written in this liminal month. Every day I check in as many times as feels natural with my spirit connection to Dad.
I created my own grieving rituals, honouring his life and love annually. My emotions are free to be of primary importance during this time. There are many patterns to the dance of my grief that sustain me like water floats a boat and has hidden depths.🌹
Jocelyn,
thank you for sharing this beautiful expression and perspective of the time between September and October. As I read this, I felt it deep in my bones (as my shaman teacher used to say, we know things in our bone marrow).
the best way to honor Grief is to let the legacy of our loved ones live on in us and honor our ancestors as part of us. Your sweater knitting tradition (that word doesn't feel even close to really expressing what it is that you do each year) is such a wonderful tangible and energetic way to process that. Weaving together the physical with the spiritual through the yarns of your being and then turning that into something wearable that is comforting and warming. WOW! just WOW!
What a sensitive and kind thing to say in response Terri. I’ve just been feeling my way and making the sweaters is also a way of making beauty with my hands while my mind is free to roam and savour memories.
I loved reading what you wrote today.🌹
the neuroscience of knitting is quite fascinating. I might have to pick up that hobby someday.
You’re welcome to try it. I learned from books and online YouTube tutorials. It’s great if you’re quite tactile and creative but it can get you rolling in tangled yarn occasionally.
My father learned to knit his own socks as a child and taught my Mom after they were married.🌹
My Hobbit (hubs) has a friend who knitted him a “story-scarf” once. It is two-sided and tells the story of The Hobbit. She won second prize at the MN State Fair for it. She’s quite amazing.
I just think it would be cool to knit my own socks and ski caps and an occasional sweater here and there.
It’s kind of cool. Some people are great with the finest sock wool. I’m better with making a knitted leg warmer that warms my ankles and I tuck in the top of my winter boots.
But I want to knit more socks.🌹
The hardest time of year for me is this time period between October through December. But I know why it happens and now how to keep moving forward.
Grief work is ongoing. It has no end date etched in stone--which is something many do not understand.
Grief never read Kubler-Ross, or any of the other people that have authored theories about Grief and how to heal from it.
I do love this essay of yours--the steps you offer are all steps I have intuitively been using since our Sheila's death--they do help.
However, for some it is learning to honor Grief and the role it may play in the rest of their lives.
When Sheila died I decided to lean into my grief, honor the need and the presence of grief. This has all helped.
Teri, I love your writing. This essay is validating.
Thank you Nancy for your kind compliment. I write these articles mostly for myself and my own process, and I hope even one person feels validated, supported, encouraged, or inspired by them. Seems this one hit a few peeps.
Leaning into Grief is quite possibly one of the scariest and most sacred things a human can do. It's no wonder scared and sacred are the same letters rearranged.
I hear you Teri. Writing is processing on paper.
That's a beautiful story. I love how even after everything she said it was still hard, but manageable hard. I think too often we strive for this strange kind of "happiness" not allowing ourselves to feel any kind of feeling. Hard feelings are part of life, they're just not supposed to completely take over, and you've made that clear in a beautiful way here.